WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENT TRAINING SYSTEMS FOR GRAPEVINES?
Although there are countless ways to train a vine, all of the common systems used to train wine cultivars can be catagorized using three criteria: 1. The Vine’s Superstructure: This is the term we will use to describe the vine’s configuration of perennial wood (see glossary) and to describe how and where the fruiting wood is trained to emanate from the perennial wood. Examples of different types of superstructures include: -a low head (a short trunk) -a high head (a tall trunk) -a low cordon (a low horizontal extension of a trunk) -a high cordon (a high horizontal extension of a trunk) 2. The length of the fruiting wood: This describes the length (in nodes [see glossary]) to which the fruiting wood is pruned. Examples include: -short spurs (1-2 nodes) -spurs (3 nodes) -canes (4-8 nodes) -long canes (9+ nodes) 3. The Orientation and Shape of the Fruiting Wood, and the Positioning of the growing Shoots: -The orientation tells us whether the spurs/canes are trained horizontally, upward or
