Canopy management effects on ‘Syrah’ grapevines under tropical semi-arid conditions

Abstract

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of shoot topping and leaf removal practices on vegetative vigor, yield and physicochemical characteristics of the 'Syrah' grape in the semi-arid tropical climate conditions of the São Francisco River Valley in the northeast of Brazil. The experiment was conducted over five growing cycles from 2010 to 2012 in a 'Syrah' commercial vineyard in the municipality of Casa Nova, Bahia, Brazil. Treatments consisted of leaf removal once or twice during fruit set or at the beginning of bunch closure, and one or two shoot toppings of the berry when pea-sized or 10 days after berry growth had commenced. Leaf removal and shoot topping did not affect yield, plant vigor components nor the main attributes of fruit quality. In contrast, there was a seasonal effect with higher yield and better balance between production and vigor in grapes produced in the first half of 2012. The Syrah grape quality was favored in cycles in the first half of the year when its ripening phase coincided with the period of mild temperatures.

Chemical characteristics of grapes cv. Syrah (Vitis vinifera L.) grown in the tropical semiarid region of Brazil (Pernambuco state): influence of rootstock and harvest season

“…The findings with respect to total acidity (Table 1) for berries during the first harvest season reached greater values, with 7.1 g L −1 and 6.4 g L −1 of tartaric acid, for grapes from vines grafted onto 1103P and IAC 313, respectively. The high acidity results for the Syrah cultivar are in agreement with those of Lima et al, 26 who studied the influence of the harvest season on the analytical characteristics of Syrah grapes (concentrations of approximately 4.2 g L −1 of tartaric acid) and Leão et al, 27 who studied canopy management effects on Syrah grapevines under semiarid tropical conditions (concentrations between 4.3 g L −1 and 7.3 g L −1 of tartaric acid). The highest concentrations of total acidity in grapes from the first harvest season may be related to the high concentrations of tartaric acid and mainly malic acid (Table 1).…”

Effect of shoot topping intensity on 'Cabernet Franc' grapevine maturity in high-altitude region

“…For example, the results of the present study are in agreement with those obtained with 'Pinot Noir', in which reductions of the leaf area up to 50% caused a decrease in the accumulation of soluble solids, but no alteration in the acid content (Parker et al, 2015). However, in studies conducted with 'Syrah' (Leão et al, 2016) and 'Sauvignon Blanc' (Šuklje et al, 2013) grapevines, subjected to reductions of 12 and 44% in the total leaf area, respectively, no differences were observed in the concentration of SS. However, these authors found differences in titratable acidity contents.…”

Shoot topping of ‘Niagara Rosada’ grapevine grafted onto different rootstocks

“…This effect can be attributed to the fact that shoot topping has no influence on other characteristics that present high correlation with the yield, such as the number of clusters per plant (r = 0.91; p < 0.01), the mass of clusters (r = 0.73; p < 0.01) and the number of berries per cluster (r = 0.71; p < 0.01). Other studies have also shown that different shoot topping levels did not affect the grapevine production (Poni and Giachino, 2000;Leão et al, 2016).…”