Super position

 
Pruned Meunier-plants in Loisy-en-Brie.

Our pruning has finally begun. Alain has found a guy in Vertus, who is now doing some of the job.

With his girlfriend he has pruned the first Meunier-vines following the 3-9-6 system.

Three buds on the little stump le rachet in the bottom.

Nine buds on the young hope la baguette.

Six buds on the one year old extension of the old one le prolongement.

And that would be the end of it if not monsieur or maybe madame leave the vines with superposition.

Superpositioning
If you translate to Danish or English the wrong way superpositioning sounds great. But we do not really like the phenomenon, since it is strictly forbidden in the AOC-laws. Which is also why it is the fast and easy way to fail your exam in pruning.

 
When you attach the two bows, one young wood will be placed above the other. This is superposition, and we do not like it.

Diligent readers of this blog may remember to have heard the word a few times before. I have written about it rather thoroughly, since it was part of my method to learn how to avoid it.

The problem is buds, that lye on top of each other. When you prune for instance Meunier followong the 3-9-6-method - the Vallée de la Marne that is - you will eventually bind two bows at the fence. One on top of the other. It is important that the buds of the young bow end before the buds on the young part of the old bow start. In this way you avoid that the branches, that will grow from the buds in the spring, will disturb each other.

To prioritate right
To avoid this you need to abandon the principle of 3-9-6 a bit and instead leave only the possible amount of buds. A question about the right prioritation really. No superposition is more important than the correct amount of buds. And this our friend does not follow.

He failed his exam anyway. But then, so did many others, and not all of them very justified, it seemed. So for me failing the exam does not necessarily mean that you do not know how to prune. You just need to be told, I guess.

 
Our local machine pool has delived wooden chops between the rows, and that makes it a lot easier to work in the wet winterseason.

We plan to begin pruning the other plot with the cordons next weekend.

På dansk

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