Evaluation of the effects of pruning methodology on the development of young vines 

Abstract

Grapevine pruning is one of the most important practices in the vineyards. Winegrowers use it to provide the vines the shape needed, or to maintain it once achieved, and also to balance vegetative growth and fruit production. In the last decades, careless pruning has been blamed, among other factors, as responsible of the vineyard decay that is been observed even in young vines. However, to our knowledge, there is a lack of systematic research trying to elucidate to which extent the pruning method used affects plant development or its susceptibility to grapevine trunk diseases (GTD). Within this context, the aim of this work is to study the influence of different pruning method strategies on the development of field-planted young vines. Two trials were carried out in commercial vineyards planted in 2019 in La Rioja and Navarra, where three pruning criteria were applied: i) control pruning, following the criteria of the winegrowers in the area (CONT); ii) respectful pruning, paying attention to the preferential sap flow pathway and leaving protective wood in the cuts (RESP); and iii) aggressive pruning, not paying attention to sap flow pathways and not leaving protective wood (AGGR). In general, RESP pruning tended to increase shoot growth compared to CONT and AGGR pruning, obtaining higher values of pruning wood weight in winter, and reaching greater yield in the first harvest. In conclusion, the different pruning strategies applied have a significant effect on growth, even though more years of experimentation would be necessary to evaluate their impact on the agronomic behavior and general performance and longevity of the vineyard.

The project (EFA324/19 VITES QUALITAS) has been 65% cofinanced by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) through the Interreg V-A Spain-France-Andorra programme (POCTEFA 2014-2020).