Vine polling.

Over the past few days lots of you have asked me to explain exactly what the vine polling operation consists of.

It’s simple: polling is a practice carried out to shape the vines, working to manage the vigour and the production of shoots and leaves in the best way possible.

Simply put, polling involves cutting off the vegetative tips that would otherwise continue to lengthen as a result of meristematic activity, blocking the vineyard and  generating an untidy jumbling up of the canopy.

Being an acrotonous plant, the apex of the vine dominates vegetation, which tends to control the activity of the buds that are ready.

Polling places the vegetative apex in an “offside” position, stimulating the growth of the lateral buds, as shown in the photo.

This encourages the vine to produce new leaves, especially at the top when using the espalier training system, increasing the leaf surface which will help us with the maturing of the polyphenols in September – October.

So – in short – polling helps us in a variety of ways, as well as keeping the vineyard clean, tidy and consequently easier to defend against adversities in general.

This is more or less a series of rules that works well at the latitude of  Piedmont and with the Piedmontese grape varieties.