This week, the vineyard crew pruned all 61 rows of Steuben vines and then shifted to tucking the Marquette. All of these vines are at Meadowcreek Vineyard.
So, what is tucking? Most of our Marquette is trellised on a Vertical Shoot Positioning (VSP) trellis. That means that the main, fruiting cordon is 30–36 inches above the ground. All of the fruit hangs from this cordon. The canes that grow each year are then trained upward between the “catch wires.” Much as we would like it, the canes don’t always want to grow right between the catch wires that are about 12 inches from each other. So, we have to go and train them to grow where we want them to be. Actually, our Marquette is very vigorous so by mid-season in early July, it will have grown up through the catch wires and will then fall over and sometimes actually hit the ground. We have a mass pruner that we can use to just cut them off about 12 inches above the top catch wires.
We have nine acres of Marquette so this process will take a lot of time.
