Training Systems

Question 1

What is alberate?

Answer 1

an old form of vine-training system used in parts of Italy where the vines are trained on or between trees. There are local variations, such as those in Bologna, Tuscany, Veneto, and Romagna, with the common feature being that trees are used for support.

Question 2

What is arbour/tendone?

Answer 2

• Tendone, the Italian name for the overhead vine-training system widely used in southern Italy, especially in Abruzzo. It is also common in South America, where it is used for both table grapes and wine grapes, and is called parral (Argentina) or parron (Chile).
• English terms used include both arbour and pergola, although the system is little used in English-speaking countries.

Question 3

What is arched cane?

Answer 3

a variation on many different forms of training systems where canes are arched rather than being tied horizontally. Alternative names include bow trained, arcure in French, Capovolto or Guyot ad archetto in Italy. This practice is claimed to lead to better budbreak in the centre of the canes, where buds do not normally burst well. It can be considered a variation of Guyot training.

Question 4

What is ballerina?

Answer 4

A form of Smart–Dyson developed in King Valley, Victoria, Australia. One vertical and two transverse curtains are created from one or two cordons trained to spurs pointing upwards. Many bilateral cordon training systems can easily be converted to ballerina.

Question 5

What is barra?

Answer 5

Used for monoculture in Vinho Verde whereby vines are trained in one direction along a single wire at shoulder height.

Question 6

What is basket training?

Answer 6

Often used for free-standing vines where canes are wound one around the other for mutual support. Common for some bush wine systems which are pruned. Typically they are low vigor.

Question 7

What is Casarsa?

Answer 7

Or Casarsa Friuli, an Italian training system like the Sylvoz, except the canes are not tied down after pruning.

Question 8

What is Cassone padavano?

Answer 8

A horizontally divided Italian system, pruned like the Sylvoz.

Question 9

What is Cazenave?

Answer 9

An Italian vine-training system which uses a modified form of Guyot pruning where short arms containing spurs and canes (five to six buds) are arranged along a horizontal cordon. The canes are tied about vertically to a wire above. Because the pruner is able to leave so many buds per vine, this system is suited to fertile soils.

Question 10

What is Château Thierry?

Answer 10

a form of guyot training where the cane is tied in an arch to a stake beside the free-standing vine.

Question 11

What is Cordon de Cazenave?

Answer 11

An Italian and French system used for fertile soils, with one or more canes left on a cordon de royat.

Question 12

What is cordon de Royat?
Who created it?
What is the form?
Pruning?

Answer 12

• old form of cordon training used in France for wine grapes since the end of the 19th century.
• proposed by Lefebvre, director of the French agricultural school of Royat.
• classic form is a unilateral cordon on a short trunk (about 30 to 50 cm (12–20 in)), meaning the cordone is trained only to one side of the trunk and extends mostly from one vine to another.
• vines are normally spur pruned to two-bud spurs.
• number of spurs is limited for each variety under appellation laws: in Burgundy, for example, to four spurs each for Pinot Noir and Chardonnay vines, and to eight for Gamay.

Question 13

What is cordon vertical?

Answer 13

A vertical cordon with alternating spurs to either side. Not used very commonly as growth tends to be mainly from the top buds.

Question 14

What is cruzeta?

Answer 14

A system used in the Vinho Verde area of Portugal where vines are trained to a wide cross arm about 2 m off the ground. More sophisticated than latada but less so than barra.

Question 15

What is double header?

Answer 15

A system developed by Terry Bennett, a grower in Tasmania, to allow cane pruned vines in his cool-climate vineyard to achieve balance by pruning to more buds, but avoiding shoot crowding. This was achieved by removing each second vine in the row.

Question 16

What is duplex?

Answer 16

a system developed in California in the 1960s with flexible cross arms to allow for machine harvesting. While the fruiting wires are horizontally divided by 1 m/3 ft, the foliage was not shoot positioned to create two separate curtains as for the geneva double curtain. As a consequence, it is not nearly as beneficial in terms of yield, quality, and disease avoidance and is now little used.

Question 17

What is espalier?

Answer 17

• Unusual training system, more desirable for aesthetic than commercial reasons
• the plant is trained to grow in a single plane to form a flat shape, for example against a wall.
• leaves a trunk and one or two arms with several canes which are trained in the same plane with a trellis or wire for support.
• Different vines are trained to different heights in the French Espalier de Thoméry.

Question 18

What is éventail?

Answer 18

(meaning ‘fan’), a French system with multiple arms, each giving rise to a spur or short cane. Originally the form used in Chablis, with the arms lying on the ground, this has been modified to the taille de Semur system, where each arm is tied to a lower wire in the one plane.

Question 19

What is factory roof system?

Answer 19

commonly used for table grapes, in South Africa and Israel, for example, where the canopy is trained up at an angle to meet in a gable near the row centre. This may also be called a closed, one-arm pergola, and provides excellent access to the fruit for any hand work required.

Question 20

What is fan shaped?

Answer 20

training system distantly related to éventail that is used in central Europe, particularly Russia, where the vine trunks are spread out in the shape of a fan, which makes it easier to bury vines for winter protection. The Italian version is called ventagli.

Question 21

What is Flachbogen?

Answer 21

German name for a training system like the Guyot whereby one cane is laid horizontally either side of the head, and shoots trained veritcally between foliage wires. The shoots are trimmed at the top.

Question 22

What is Geneva double curtain?

Answer 22

often abbreviated to GDC, a vine-training system whereby the canopy is divided into two pendent curtains, trained downwards from high cordons or canes.

• developed by Professor Nelson Shaulis of Geneva Experiment Station in upstate New York in the early 1960s.
• vines are planted in about 3-m/10-ft rows and the trunk divided at about 1.5 m height to form two parallel cordons about 1.3 m/4 ft apart. The foliage is trained downwards from these cordons, forming the so-called double curtains.
• was one of the first examples of a divided canopy developed in the New World
• by reducing shade, it increases both yield and grape quality
• While initially developed for the American variety Concord, the system has been applied to vinifera wine grapes, especially in Italy.
• particularly useful for wide row spacing vineyards of high vigor. While most wine grape varieties have more erect shoots than the American vines it was developed with, it has been found suitable for use in many vineyards, and some notable increases in yield and wine quality have resulted from use of the system.

Question 23

What is Gobelet?
training/pruning?
Where used?
Other names?

Answer 23

a form of vine-training system, used since Roman times, where spurs are arranged on short arms in an approximate circle at the top of a short trunk, making the vine look something like a goblet drinking vessel

• vines are free standing (apart from a small supporting stake when young) and is best suited to low-vigour, dry climate vineyards.
• form of head training and is generally subject to spur pruning. The trunk is short, typically 30 to 50 cm (12–19 in), and the foliage is unsupported by wires.
• it is widedspread in France, from Beaujolais southward, although it is now less common than it was because it is generally more economical to train vines on trellis systems
• Italy called alberelli a vaso, in Spain en vaso, and in Portugal en taça “tasa”.

Question 24

What is Guyot? “GWEE-oh”?
Type of training/pruning?
Where is it found?

Answer 24

• Jules Guyot 19th century French scientist with a particular interest in viticulture and winemaking
• His practical treatises on growing vines and making wine were translated into English in the second half of the 19th century and are enthusiastically followed by New World producers.
• promoted the system of cane pruning and head training.
• basic principle of Guyot pruning is to leave 6-10 bud canes and for each a single two-bud spur at the base; shoots from this spur form the cane the following year
• Guyot simple form (aka single Guyot), has one cane and one spur
• Guyot double (aka double Guyot) is the most common training system in Bordeaux, has two canes and two spurs, and the canes are trained to each side. Sometimes the canes are arched, as in the Jura.

Question 25

What is Halbbogen?

Answer 25

a German training system whereby the vine is pruned to one cane of about 15 buds’ length, and is arched in the middle over a wire about 25 cm/10 in above the base and end of the cane. Shoots are trained each year vertically between foliage wires, and are trimmed at the top.

Question 26

What is head trained?

Answer 26

common term for a vine trained so that spurs and canes arise in one zone, called the head. Such vines are normally cane pruned.

Question 27

What is Hudson River umbrella?

Answer 27

A system used in the eastern US, where canes are arched downwards from a high head.

Question 28

What is Isère?

Answer 28

Isère, a training system much like Château Thierry, a form of guyot training where the cane is tied in an arch to a stake beside the free-standing vine.

Question 29

What is latada?

Answer 29

Traditional 3-m-high trellis used on Madeira for vines grown around fields of other crops, equivalent to vinho verde’s ramada.

Question 30

What is Lenz Moser?
Type of system?
Influenced?
Pros/Cons?
Also known as?

Answer 30

-training system developed in Austria in the 1920s by Dr Lenz Moser III.
-employs wider rows (about 3.5 m/11.5 ft) and higher trunks (1.3 m) than had previously been the norm, thereby reducing vine density.
-Moser’s ideas influenced Professor Nelson Shaulis, who developed the geneva double curtain.
-Pros:
system popular in parts of Europe in the mid 20th century because it decreases labor and therefore production costs, without any need for special machinery.
-Cons:
French and German studies found reductions in fruit quality, however, probably because of shade in the fruit zone and it is now much less common even in Austria.
-also known as high culture, or Hochkultur in German.

Question 31

What is Lincoln canopy?

Answer 31

a horizontal canopy developed at Lincoln University in New Zealand but rarely used commercially. It is like the arbour, but is at waist height and allows tractor access between rows.

Question 32

What is lyre?
Who developed it?
Benefits?
Pruning?
Where is it used?

Answer 32

• a vine-training system whereby the canopy is divided horizontally into two curtains of upward-pointing shoots and which resembles a lyre in shape; it is basically an inverted GDC.
• The system was developed in Bordeaux in the early 1980s by Dr Alain Carbonneau.
• The lyre system improves the canopy microclimate and leads to improvement in yield and wine quality because of better leaf and fruit exposure to sunlight.
• Either spur pruning or cane pruning can be used.
• Further use of this system has been delayed by the unavailability of suitable mechanical harvesters. The system is being adopted in New World vineyards in particular, especially in California, and to a lesser extent in Australia, New Zealand, Chile, and Uruguay, but it has also been trialled in Beaujolais.

Question 33

What is MPCT?

Answer 33

minimal pruned cordon trained, which describes the system developed and extensively used in Australia, mainly for bulk wine production. Young vines are trained to a form of cordon at about 1.5 m height and, apart from wrapping early cane growth on the wire, receive minimal hand work, including pruning.

Question 34

What is palmette?

Answer 34

Italian training system, with one vine trained to four horizontal canes, one pair above the other.

Question 35

What is Pendelbogen?

Answer 35

• German name for the arched cane training system.
• There is a 50-cm height difference between the end of the cane and the highest point, which is thought to improve budbreak in the middle of the cane. Most of the shoots are trained vertically upright between foliage wires, and normally require trimming at the top. Pendelbogen means ‘pendulum bow’, and there are related training forms called not just Halbbogen (‘half bow’), but also Rundbogen (‘round bow’) and Doppelbogen (‘double bow’). The name has also been applied to a mid-height Sylvoz system in New Zealand.

Question 36

What is pergola?
Also known as?
What is a closer pergola?
Where is it used?
Pros/Cons

Answer 36

-a form of overhead vine training.
-Where the canopy is horizontal, the pergola can alternatively be called tendone.
-Pergola trellises can be either one or two armed, depending on whether the vines are trained on one or both sides of the row.
-If the trellis is joined overhead, it is called a closed pergola.
-widely used in northern Italy, where the canopies vary but are often inclined rather than horizontal (in Trentino, for example, the slope is 20 to 30 degrees). In Emilia-Romagna the pergoletta system.-
Pros: Intercepts most if not all sunlight, and so has a high yield potential in marginal climates; overhead leaf canopy may be an advantage as temperatures increase with climate change, and in Aosta its value in protecting against hail has been noted.
-Cons: Where the vines have marked vigor, the bunches which hang below the leafy canopy are in shade, with predictable negative effects on wine quality.

Question 37

What is Perold?

Answer 37

A South African term for vertical trellis, named after A.I (Abraham Izak) Perold, the breeder of Pinotage.

Question 38

What is pyramid?

Answer 38

An Italian training system where vine shoots are trained over a group of stakes tied together at the top, forming a pyramid.

Question 39

What is raggi Belussi?

Answer 39

an Italian overhead training system suspended from above and with two vines planted together and trained in four directions. Pruned like the Sylvoz.

Question 40

What is raggiera or raggi?

Answer 40

an Italian training system where vines are trained overhead on wires like the spokes of a wheel. Either one vine may be trained up a central stake or tree and divided into cordons, or several vines may be at the one position with each trained along a different radius.

Question 41

What is Ruakura twin two-tier (RT2T)?

Answer 41

a trellis system developed at the Ruakura Research Centre in New Zealand with the canopy divided into four curtains, two above two. Related to the Smart-Dyson, this is an experimental system that has not been used commercially.

Question 42

What is Scott Henry?
Developed by and when?
Pruning type?
Suited to?
Where is it used?

Answer 42

• a vine-training system whereby the canopy is divided vertically and the shoots are separated and trained in two curtains, upwards and downwards. The canopy is about 2 m/6.5 ft tall, and the leaves are held in place by foliage wires.
• developed by an Oregon vine-grower of the same name in the early 1980s when his vines were so vigorous that both yield and quality were reduced.
• originally developed for cane pruning; a later spur-pruned version has now generally been superseded by the Smart–Dyson system.
• suited to moderate-vigour vineyards with row spacing of about 2 m or more. -Widely used in many New World countries in the 1990s because of its suitability for mechanical harvesting and potential for improving wine quality and yield.
• Adoption by Delegat in Hawke’s Bay and marlborough, New Zealand, since 2005 has led to the world’s largest vineyard area trained to this system, around 1,300 ha (3,212 acres), i.e. 90% of the company vineyards.

Question 43

What is shelf or tana?

Answer 43

Local name for overhead trellis in Japan.

Question 44

What is slanting trellis?

Answer 44

The canopy is trained along an inclined support. This trellis can be used for both table- and wine-grape production.

Question 45

What is Smart-Dyson?

Developed by and when?
How it is trained?
Pruning type?
Where is it used?

Answer 45

• vine training system developed in the early 1980s in California devised by Richard Smart of Australia and John Dyson of New York, and initially trialled on Dyson’s ranch in Gilroy, California, in 1992 with Merlot vines. -experience has shown an increase in both yield and quality following conversion from the often-shaded vertical trellis.
• by the end of the 2000s adopted in new plantings in Spain and South Africa in particular.
• it is a vertically divided training system like Scott Henry, but the vine is cordon trained and there are upwards- and downwards-pointing spurs giving rise to the two canopies. It is compatible with mechanical pruning, unlike the Scott Henry system, and it can be mechanically harvested as readily.

Question 46

What is Sylvoz?
How are they trained?
Variation?
Best suited where?

Answer 46

• a vine-training system developed by the Italian grower Carlo Sylvoz in which canes of up to, say, ten buds in length are tied to a wire below a high cordon; very high yielding.
• The vines can be trained with a high cordon, about 2 m/6.5 ft, or a mid height cordon at about 1 m.
• variation is the Casarsa system common in northern Italy, where the canes are not tied below the cordon, but fall downward as a result of their own weight when bearing leaves and fruit.
• The Sylvoz system is suited to vines of high vigour, where high yields are acceptable, and where it is necessary to minimize pruning labor.

Question 47

What is Te Kauwhata two tier (TK2T)?

Answer 47

Te Kauwhata two tier (TK2T). Developed at the Te Kauwhata Research Station in New Zealand, this system is vertically divided, with shoots trained vertically upwards. Limited commercial use in California and New Zealand

Question 48

What is tendone?

Answer 48

Italian name for the overhead vine-training system widely used in southern Italy, especially in Abruzzo. It is also common in South America, where it is used for both table grapes and wine grapes, and is called parral (Argentina) or parron (Chile). English terms used include both arbour and pergola, although the system is little used in English-speaking countries.

The vines are normally trained with trunks about 2 m/6.5 ft high and a system of wooden frames and cross wires supports the foliage and fruit. Typically in Abruzzo the vines are planted in a 2.5 x 2.5 m square (up to 3 x 3 m for trebbiano) and from each staked vine four shoots are trained in different directions along the wires.

Arbours are normally high enough from the ground to allow tractors and implements to pass underneath, but not so high as to make hand work difficult. The vines are pruned to either canes or spurs (pruning). Because all of the sunlight is captured, the system can be very productive: 30 to 70 tonnes of grapes per hectare (12–28 tons/acre) when water supply is plentiful.

Such training systems are limited in use because of the expense of their construction and the high cost of labour required to manage them. Worker productivity is lower because of fatigue, and, where the vines are vigorous, the leaves form a very dense canopy on top and so the fruit and lower leaves are heavily shaded. This reduces both yield and quality, and increases the risk of powdery mildew.

Furthermore, the ventilation under such canopies is very restricted and the build-up of humidity favours botrytis bunch rot. The arbour system is used for table grapes in many parts of the world, and has the advantage that the fruit hangs freely and makes access easy. Inclined overhead trellis systems which do not completely cover the ground are often used for table grapes, as in South Africa (where it may be called the verandah system), and occasionally for wine grapes around the borders of fields in the vinho verde region of Portugal.

Question 49

What is three-wire trellis?

Answer 49

California trellis system with a pair of fixed foliage wires above the cordon. Shoots are not positioned, and fall across these wires under their own weight.

Question 50

What is T trellis?

Answer 50

• common in Australia, where the vine is trained to two horizontal cordons about 0.5 m apart.
• takes its name from the appearance of the vine trunk and cordons.
• shoots are not positioned, and so the canopy is not divided.
• Can be machine pruned and harvested, and is widely used in bulk wine-producing areas.

-called traverse trellis in Europe

Question 51

What is tunnel?

Answer 51

an alternative name for a form of overhead vine training where the vines are planted in two rows and trained overhead.

Question 52

What is two-wire vertical trellis?

Answer 52

common terminology in California, where one wire is occupied by the cordon and the second is a fixed foliage wire. Shoots grow up and over this wire and fall under their own weight to form a bell-shaped canopy. When the vines are vigorous, the canopy is very shaded.

Question 53

What is umbrella kniffin?

Answer 53

A system used in eastern America, where canes from a mid-height head are trained over a top wire and tied below.

Question 54

Vertical cordon?

Answer 54

a rare training system as top buds tend to burst first, making it difficult to manage.

Question 55

What is vertical shoot positioning?

Answer 55

vertical shoot positioning, which describes a system used throughout the world where annual shoot growth is trained vertically upwards and held in place by foliage wires. See vertical trellis.