I spent some time this morning stuffing and thinning shoots in the vineyard until it got a little too windy to continue, so I decided to finish the row I was in and go back inside. But not before I took a photograph of an unusual event that is going on in the canopy right now.I have no explanation for this phenomenon that occurs in a handful of grapevines every spring, mostly in the Syrah, I just simply refer to it as "that double-meristem-thingy." I'm pretty sure the dividing of the apical meristem, into two growing tips, is simply a spontaneous somatic mutation. The clusters on these shoots never seem to be adversely affected, however it does result in twice the amount of fruit. The more the merrier.
