Leaf Plucking
How much leaf comes off the fruit zone, and on which side of the row.
Open the wrong side before a hot week and the exposed fruit burns.
Taking leaves out of the fruit zone — and knowing when to stop
The most exposed part of the canopy is not the top of the row but the middle — the zone where clusters hang. Leaves grow densely there through early summer, and without intervention they create a humid, shaded pocket that slows ripening and invites disease. Leaf plucking opens that zone deliberately: each leaf pulled by hand or stripped by a mechanical finger-wheel along the side of the row, until the clusters hang in open air.
The timing matters as much as the number. Pull leaves in early summer, when the shoots are still young and the skin on the berries is developing, and the clusters harden off under the increased light exposure. The berries toughen slightly, and that toughening reduces the risk of splitting and botrytis later in the season. Pull too late — after veraison, when the fruit has already begun to soften — and you expose clusters that have lost the ability to adapt, raising the sunburn risk sharply without the compensating benefit.
Severity depends on the aspect and the climate. On an east-facing slope, morning sun arrives gently; on a west-facing or south-facing slope, afternoon sun can be intense enough to bleach and desiccate exposed berries within a day or two of aggressive plucking. Some growers leave a deliberate leaf or two as a parasol over the top of the cluster. Others rely on the second flush of lateral shoots — the short growth that emerges from the same nodes after the primary leaf is removed — to filter the light rather than block it entirely. Laterals transmit more light than a full primary leaf; they let air circulate without cooking the fruit.
Where botrytis pressure is historically high — heavy soils, humid valley floors, tight-clustered varieties — leaf removal is close to obligatory. Where the climate is drier, the decision is more calibrated. The point of the work is never a bare cordon but a fruit zone that breathes, where ripening happens evenly and the harvest crew can see clearly what they are picking.
Leaf plucking opens that zone deliberately: each leaf pulled by hand or stripped by a mechanical finger-wheel along the side of the row, until the clusters hang in open air.
