The response of the grape cultivar Crouchen (Australian syn. Clare Riesling) to various trellis and pruning treatments

Abstract

An experiment IS dcsci bed which lasted for SIX seasons and was designed to investigate the response of the cultivar Qouchen (syn Clare Riesling) to various trellising and pruning treatments This cultivar, which achieves high levels of bud fruitfulness when grown In the Murray Valley, responded to widening the trellis from 0.3 m to 1.4 m with an increase In yield of 25–30%. This yield Increase was largely due to a better bud burst for vines on the wider trellis. Increasing the number of nodes per vine from 32 to 48 caused a yield Increase of about 15 %, but a further Increase to 64 nodes d i d not result in any additional yield response In the initial year of the trial, spur- and cane-pruned vines (with node numbers in the ratio of 4 to 5) yielded equally well. But In later years spur-pruned vines gave increasingly better yields, again resulting from differences In bud burst. To investigate the relationship between wine quality and yield, the fruit of four combinations of pruning and trellising treatments, giving a range of yields, was made into wine. Small-scale wine-making techniques were used No significant differences In wine quality attributable to the yield differences were found.