In specific conditions of Albania, the grape cultivar “Merlot”, has replaced  the autochthonous cultivars such as Kallmet and Shesh i Zi in the structure of red wine cultivars because of  its resistance against diseases like Plasmopara viticola and Uncinula necator, earlier maturity time, high levels of anthocians on the berry peel, and low levels of tannins. Grape cultivar  Merlot differs one or two inflorescenes for each fruitbearing shoots in the base and middle part buds of the cane. In vineyards without irrigation there is beeing applied short prunning system with two-three buds for cane or ten to twelve buds for each vine. The paper presents the impact of productive cane arching (bending) on vegetative and productivity indicators of grape cultivar Merlot. The study was carried out during 2008-2010 in vineyards of Zagora village in Malësia e Madhe, where was applied double Gyot training and mixed pruning system. There were studied two variants of productive canes fixing:  V 1 – horizontal canes – traditional Gyot. V 2 – arched canes (bending canes). The experimental data show that cane arching do affect on vegetative and productive indicators of grape cultivar Merlot. So, in V 2 , with arched canes, shoot length was 76.25 cm versus 86.25 cm of V 1 ;  mean shoot diameters in V 2 was  7.97 mm versus 6.48 mm of V 1 , and relative productive coefficients (RPC) were 1.46 bunches/shoot for V 2 versus 1.5 bunches/shoot for V 1 . The increase of yield of V 2 was 13.2 kv/ha or 10.9% higher than the yield of V 1 . The specific gravity of must of V 2 (arched canes) was 1088 versus 1086 of V 1 , and sugar content of must was 20.4% for V 2 versus 19.9% for V 1 . The wine produced with grape of V 2 had an alcoholic grade 12% versus 11.7% of the wine produced with grape of V 1 . At the crown form double Gyot, arching of productive canes do affect positively on reducing of polarity phenomenon and increase of productivity because of a better assimilates distribution to product indicators benefit, and improvement of chemical and technical must and wine indicators.

arching, cane, double Gyot, indicator, productivity, vegetation

Presentation: oral