Thursday, March 18, 2021

Le pliage

One of my readers recently asked how grape vine canes are attached to guide wires once pruning is done. In a step called pliage (folding or bending), the cane that remains after pruning is bent to the horizontal and attached to a wire. The cane can be wrapped around the wire with no other attachment, but most often (from what I see around here), the cane is attached to the wire with a kind of tie.

A grape vine cane bent to the horizontal and attached to a guide wire with a twist tie.

The tie in the photo is applied with a hand-held machine that makes the action simple and quick. Just like a twisty-tie (or twist tie) for closing a bread bag. The buds along the cane will sprout into new canes that will grow vertically and sprout leaves. For the past few weeks, I've seen one guy out in the vineyard parcels nearest to us whose only job is to do the pliage. He works for the grower that owns most of the parcels out there.

8 comments:

  1. Very cool photo, and very cool info.

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  2. You can see the buf growing

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  3. Thanks for the photo. That little device makes tying the vine a simple process. The vines do a lot of growing in one year, not to mention grape production.

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  4. Very interesting, thanks. I wonder if the folder/bender guy would like a picture of himself, in action, in your blog.

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  5. I love learning stuff like this.

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  6. I wonder if the person who does le pliage also does pliés.

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  7. mitch, you bet!

    judy, :)

    travel, buds? ;)

    evelyn, true!

    bettyann, I haven't seen him in a few days.

    michael, and now you're learning about chickens!

    emm, one never knows...

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