Canopy management involves a range of techniques we use in the vineyard to manage our vine’s canopy (the leaves, shoots and fruit) from the time of winter pruning until harvest.
The overall aims of canopy management are to optimise and balance yield, improve fruit quality, reduce the risk of disease, improve pest control and facilitate other vineyard operations.
Through canopy management techniques we try to produce an open canopy which provides good leaf exposure to the sun, shade for the grapes to avoid sunburn, improves air flow and reduces the incidence of bunch rots and mildews.
Grapevines require enough leaf area to ripen the fruit and produce a desired fruit quality, without the canopy being so dense that it encourages diseases.