When shopping for tools to manage your vineyard, don’t forget about tractor attachments and other accessories that can make the job go quicker.
Jan Palaggi, co-owner of Palaia Winery and Meadery in New York, said their Green Hoe, which allows them to hill up vines and remove weeds without chemicals, had been a good investment.
“It’s also good to get a good vine rake,” she said. “Getting those vine clippings out of the vineyard is important — not just grinding them up. Any vine infections or problems are out.”
Palaggi said the simplest and most vital accessories to own were forks for the tractor.
“You need them for everything — taking empty bottles off trucks, deliveries of all kinds from vineyard posts to pallets,” she said. “ Picking up bins of fruit, taking bins of waste to dump…so many uses.”
She said they also make good use of their golf cart, which fits a 25-gallon sprayer, and John Deere Gator, which has a dump bed and fits between the rows.
“It’s been a very good investment — we have had our Gator for 20 years,” she said.
Timothy Hosmer, owner of Hosmer Winery in the Finger Lakes, said their Braun grape hoe for under-vine cultivation had helped the vineyard tremendously.
“It’s rugged, reliable, and rapid,” he said. “It has an automatic trip arm for sensing vines which allows for better accuracy in the cultivation and greater speed.”
The Binger deleafer has also been a huge labor saver in the vineyard, he said. “Pulling leaves by hand is pretty slow,” Hosmer explained. “The Binger is a ‘force multiplier’ that allows one person on a tractor to do the work of around 10 hand laborers.”
But their best investment, Hosmer said, has been their grape harvester.
“The labor savings is enormous, although you do have to have a certain amount of acreage to really make it worthwhile,” Hosmer said. “We use an Oxbo harvester, and that choice was based completely on the availability of parts and service in our area.”
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