Key Concepts
• Growers are interested in alternative under-vine management techniques as part of a movement toward environmental stewardship.
• Under-vine covers crops are an alternative to the use of herbicides or repeated cultivation.
• Researchers and growers have experimented with seeded annual and perennial species under vines.
• Some under-vine cover crops, including chicory and fescue species, can reduce vine size and are therefore best suited to vineyard blocks with excessive vigor. Other cover crops such as buckwheat appear to have little to no impact on vine size.
• Impacts on cluster architecture and fruit quality did not manifest as expected in studies on Long Island.
• Application of cover crops under the vines can be accomplished mechanically using equipment that growers may either already possess or that can be purchased and modified relatively inexpensively.