Saw this pic in the latest WS of MarcoCaprai standing beside some of his Sagrantino vines. The vines, look to be 12-16 yrs old, have this weird loop in the trunk, maybe about 8"-10" in diameter, midway up the trunk. Look to be cordon pruned. He claims that this loop in the trunk helps to moderate the crop load. It appears that in the first yr of growth, they make a loop in the cane as they’re training the vine up to the wire, to form the trunk.
Never have heard of this trick before. Is it a technique used in other areas or is it unique to Caprai’s vnyd?? I’m a bit skeptical of its value.
Tom
Tom, people might have been looking for the pic you had seen. In any event, thanks for posting. Very interesting!
Best,
Kenney
Never seen that before. It would create a vine with more wood to support so in theory if one is using all available space for the canopy it could possible help moderate yields by forcing more energy into the wood. But that would only be required if the row spacing is so tight as to limit the height to the top of the canopy. Otherwise, one could just set the fruiting wire higher and get the same effect. Of course, raising the fruiting wire and top of the canopy has labor impacts so maybe the bend gets the balance desired while keeping labor in line.
I thought that was very curious as well. I can’t quite imagine how those vines will look at age 50. Certainly a novel idea.
Reading the text of the article a bit ago, this “knot” in the trunk is only in a vnyd he has of a bunch of clones of own-rooted Sagrantino. Apparently,
own-rooted Sagrantino has excessive vigor and the “knot” is tied to reduce the vine vigor and force more growth into the root system. And it also
reduces the heighth of the vine canopy.
Tom