Due to the unseasonably warm winter and spring we’ve had, our vines are progressing faster than normal. This week we finished suckering, a process of removing excess growth — suckers — that emerge from the base of the vine or along the trunk. Left unchecked, they divert energy away from the fruiting wood.
This round was more involved than a typical suckering pass. Rapid growth meant some suckers had already developed into small canes by the time we got to them. Removing these helps bring each vine closer to our target of two canes per spur — a key metric for optimizing plant yield (quality over quantity).
The rapid growth made things a little more labor-intensive, but the vines are looking clean and healthy coming out of it. The timing also gave us a good close-up look at fruit development — and the news is encouraging. Early green berry clusters are visible throughout the vineyard, a sign that flowering translated into solid fruit set. We’ll have more on that in a coming update.