March 2015 Wines&Vines 61
wine east grapegrowing
KEY POINTs
Palissage is a technique used instead
of hedging to control vine vigor. the
long shoot tips are tucked horizontally
along the top wire.
some early reports show that palissage
stops shoot growth earlier and reduces
the need for leaf removal.
a grant from the new york Farm Viabil-
ity institute will allow dr. Justine Van-
den Heuvel of Cornell university to
investigate the potential of palissage
and its economic impact.
Palissage: an alternative
to Mechanical Hedging
Tip from Alsace grower leads to experimentation in New York
By Dr. Justine Vanden Heuvel
The Vignoles pictured above is
trained on Umbrella Kniffin and in
need of hedging. The Pinot Gris vines
at right have been palissaged, leav-
ing the clusters exposed.
PHoTos:
Jim
mEyErs
(nEar
riGHT)
anD
Jason
HoPWooD
(Far
riGHT)
H
edging is a canopy-management
technique commonly used by
grapegrowers to control exces-
sive shoot growth. Vines with
vertically shoot positioned
(VSP) canopies can have shoots
that grow beyond the top set of catch wires
and lean downward, shading the fruiting zone
(see the photo of Noiret on page 63). In non-
VSP canopies, long shoots can extend into al-
leyways (see the Vignoles photo at left),
impeding movement through the vineyard.
Although hedging is a widely used practice,
it is considered a Band-Aid solution to excessive
vine vigor in that it does not address the long-
term problem of vine size. There are additional
problems with the vines' response to hedging,
particularly that lateral growth is stimulated on
the shoot once the tip is cut off. It is then easy
