In the 1st century AD, writers such as Columella and Pliny the Elder gave advice to vineyard owners about what type of vine trainings worked well for certain vineyards. Ancient Egyptians and Phoenicians discovered that different training techniques could promote more abundant and fruitful yields. 6000 BC, humans were cultivating vines, harvesting grapes for the explicit purpose of making wine. Fruit has also provided sustenance to humans for many millions of years, with evidence of cultivation of figs 11,500 years ago. Additionally, when ripe, seed-bearing fruit attracts animals who subsequently eat the seeds, which are then spread as waste is excreted. Fruit supports the distribution of progeny while protecting developing seeds from adverse environments as well as foraging animals. Plants have evolved to produce fruit, an adaptation essential to their survival. I discussed this approach with respect to Nebbiolo with Tom Myers and Philine Dienger. Known colloquially as sap-flow pruning, this method respects the physiology of the vine, pursuing balanced yields and improved longevity. Alongside the growing rejection of industrial agriculture, a renewed approach to pruning has grown popular, one centred around respecting vine physiology and maximising health and longevity. For the most part, pruning methodology has depended on several primary factors, namely planting density, desired yield and fruit quality, and more recently mechanisation. Though exceptions exist, this cultivation relies almost entirely on diligent pruning. For several thousands of years cultivation of grapevines has been with the explicit goal of making wine. Each of these adaptations promotes upward growth, contributing to the vine’s colonisation of nearby spaces in its hunt for sunlight. Next is acrotony, whereby the top latent buds on a fruiting cane develop first, leading to the inhibition of the development of the bottom buds on the cane. First, the vines shoot apex inhibits the growth of lateral or axillary buds so that the plant may grow vertically, a phenomenon known as apical dominance. A heliophyte, Vitis has by process of natural selection acquired a number of ingenious adaptations to support its upward struggle for sunlight. Using its tendrils, amongst other adaptive features, the vine, a liana, will use nearby trees to climb up and above the canopy established by competing trees and plants. Left untamed, the grapevine is an unruly, perennial, deciduous, climbing plant.
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