Wine Grape Canopy Management Article

Winemakers usually say that grape quality is the number one component in making great wines. One way to influence grape quality is for growers to embrace canopy management (CM) practices.

The most noted book on wine grape canopy management, Sunlight into Wine by Dr. Richard Smart, can be quite hard to find. Luckily, you can find some great infomration on the web. Below is a quote from an excellent article on wine grape canopy management from the Illinois Fruit & Vegetable News Vol. 6 No. 1.

Cluster thinning is a MUST for some peculiar varieties that have very fruitful primary buds and tend to produce 3 clusters per shoot. Examples include Seyval, Chancellor, Vidal, and Chambourcin. Among these varieties, some also have fruitful secondary and base buds, which in turn produce several clusters per shoot. Seyval and Chancellor are good examples. These 2 varieties still produce a normal crop after losing their primary buds to cold injury. Other varieties, however, do not require cluster thinning. Examples include Chardonel, Traminette, Norton (Cynthiana), Vignoles, and Frontenac.

It would appear that Illinois wine grape growers depend on their local extension offices as much as we do in Oklahoma. Check out the whole article here:
Wine Grape Canopy Management Article in Illinois Fruit and Vegetable News - Vol. 6 No. 1