[Avodah] parshas Noach question

[Zev Sero]

I asked R Craig Winchell how long it takes from planting a vineyard
until the first harvest, and he answered with much more detail than
I'd expected:

> In the days of cheap grapes, it used to be considered 3 years to the
> first commercial crop.  That is to say, you'd plant a dormant bench
> graft in the winter, it would bud and grow up a line the first year,
> during which you would top it and train laterals out horizontally
> (assuming cordon training). The next year, you'd expand the size of
> the cordon by allowing any new laterals or primary buds to push,
> then taking the canes when dormant and choosing the strongest ones
> to increase the horizontal exposure, while allowing the leaf area
> to put its sugars primary into wood rather than fruit, in order to
> strengthen the vine as a whole.  Then, the next year, you'd harvest.
> However, when grapes are expensive, many have felt it's worthwhile
> even just to harvest half a ton or a ton per acre, since it's like
> getting free grapes that way, and the vine isn't that affected by
> cropping the new vines to such a level.
> 
> Of course, if one were keeping halachos of orlah, as one must even in
> chutz la'aretz, and most say even with fruit grown by nonJews in
> nonJewish vineyards, one could not harvest until the 4th year, which
> would have been used exclusively in Jerusalem, but in the absence of
> the Beis Hamikdash can be used anywhere. 


-- 
Zev Sero               Something has gone seriously awry with this Court's
zev at sero.name          interpretation of the Constitution.
                      	                          - Clarence Thomas