Grape trimming Mechanically

[Runningwolf]

A friend of mine is opening a new winery this year and all her time is being spent on the winery itself and renovating an old barn. Due to lack of time they chose to have their neighbor trim their vineyard. GregND, this would be Lauries new place.

Incidently many of the apple orchards are also trimmed the same way and then followed up with some hand prunning to cut out the center.

 

[Brew and Wine Supply]

Now thats sweet. Visited a winery up in WI and they trimmed their Frontenac in the summer with a gas powered hedge trimmer and a golf cart.

 

[ibglowin]

Does this just do a first pass "rough cut"? You would still need to go in and prune by hand to get your final trim?

 

[grapeman]

Very nice Dan. Tell her she is lucky to get the boost in pruning. How many acres is she doing and what varieties are they? How far from you is she? So many questions............. LOL

 

[Runningwolf]

Rich, I am not sure how many acres but they are one of the largest vineyards in PA. We buy a good deal of our grapes from them. The new winery is a two family venture and the vineyard belongs to the other family. I know they have many varieties and I'm not sure which ones they are trimming here.

 

[spaniel]

This makes me think I expend too much mental energy worrying about my pruning technique...

 

[bigdrums2]

This makes me think I expend too much mental energy worrying about my pruning technique...

I wouldn't think so. I've been to many places where I thought the wine was terrible only to see a neglected or misused vineyard.

 

[Runningwolf]

There is an old saying that 90% of the winemaking happens in the vineyard. Theres a lot of truth to that. I can assure you these vineyards are well taken care of and additional pruning is done.

 

[GreginND]

Very cool. My vineyard will be rather small (only 1 acre). But I could use that machine anyway!

Can't wait to see how the winery develops. Is there a name for it yet?

 

[Deezil]

In the last picture, you can see the grape vine prunings, flying

I imagine this machine just passes along the outside of the trellis wires? Leaving everything inside the wires to be hand-pruned?

Does it make it easier to pull whats left, out of the trellis wires? I feel like im missing something, cause it just seems like a border-line waste of time...

An analogy for what im thinking...

You grow out some hair (lets call it an afro, thats what my hair does)... And you go to the barbershop, and the barber looks at the 'fro, and grabs the hedge trimmer - but tells you he's gonna have to do more work with the scissors after... So not only am i worried about my "ears" (posts, wires, plants, soil compaction) but i gotta pay him to cut the same hair, twice?

Like i said.. I feel like i'm missing something
Just seems like another "boys with their toys" moment (or maybe its just jealousy cause im looking at planting a 25-45 degree slope and cant use anything like that? ... And those hillside elevators scare the %#&%&%#$%# outta me)

 

[Runningwolf]

Manley, these machines definetely save a lot of time. When there are hundreds of acres to prune these do the initial pruning removing the majority of the vines that need trimmed. Next the worker go though and finish up the rest of the fine prunning and check for rotted or broken posts. This is not used on every variety.

 

[Deezil]

They must, its just not clicking