Florida Agricultural Experiment Station


 Cultivation of the vineyard ceases at the time of or just
previous to harvesting. The cover crop is allowed to grow
and remain standing until it is necessary to work it into the
soil so that it will not interfere with pruning. This first opera-
tion of cutting the cover crop may be done with a disk harrow,
stalk cutter, or any other implement that will cut and break
the growth up enough to incorporate it partially with the soil.
If the cover crop has grown up among the vines it will be neces-
sary to cut it with hoes and move it to the middles between
the rows.


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 Fig. 6.-A 6-year-old Florida Beacon vine with a heavy crop of fruit.

 To help in the control of diseases and insects, it is usually
considered a good sanitary practice to remove the prunings
from the vineyard and burn them. If this precaution is not
considered necessary, the prunings may be worked into the soil
during the successive cultivations, which in any event should
follow at intervals frequent enough to control weeds and have
the cover crop well incorporated in the soil by the middle of
May. Sometimes for weed or disease control it becomes ex-
pedient to turn the soil in the vineyard with a plow. Whenever
this is necessary it should be done before any abundance of