Soft Pruning to Maintain Long-Term Structure and Health of Grape Vines

Abstract

Simonit and Sirch is an Italian company that has developed a method of soft pruning, based on the methods developed in France by Guyot and Poussard. They focus on training vineyard staff to prune according to their method. Their work has been widely recognised and they are now working with major vineyards across Italy and France, and broadly across Europe, South Africa and in the U.S.A. The project was designed as a pilot to introduce soft pruning techniques to selected vineyards and to create broader awareness across four of Australia’s cool climate wine producing regions.

Summary

This project has been an outstanding success and has exceeded expectations. This report summarises the activities as planned in the proposal to AGWA. A separate paper is being prepared for submission to Australian Grapegrower and Winemaker to provide broader awareness and understanding of the soft pruning techniques developed by Simonit and Sirch. The paper is expected to be submitted during August 2016. Two representatives from Italian company, Simonit and Sirch (Giacomo Manzoni and Marco Tessari) visited Australia to demonstrate and talk about the ‘soft pruning’ method at ten vineyards across four cool climate regions. In every case, the response from vineyard management and staff was outstanding. In particular, understanding of the consequences of current practices was an ‘eye-opener’, as the sectioned vines clearly showed that large cuts, or many small cuts, caused large cones of desiccation, in many cases with the entry of eutypa, and disrupted sap flow. The pruning rules to be followed were readily appreciated and will be adopted by each vineyard in ways that suit their particular operations.