PRECISION MECHANISATION IN THE AUSTRALIAN WINE INDUSTRY FOR PRODUCT QUALITY, AND FINANCIAL SUSTAINABILITY

Precision mechanisation in cool climate vineyards can provide increased capacity for improvements in grape and wine quality, financial sustainability as well as offering staff a higher skilled career path.
Adapting and modifying certain cultural practices towards mechanisation can produce savings between 30-80% over hand conducted operations.
Modifying grape harvesters for a wider diversity of uses including pest, disease and matter other than grape (MOG) control allows for a stronger amortisation over the relatively high capital cost of single purpose machinery.
Mechanisation of practices such as summer cordon shoot thinning provides greater control of yield, quality and disease control through spray canopy penetration.
The use of recirculation sprayers and low weight slashers, builds on an ethos of reducing a vineyards carbon foot print and increase their overall sustainability.
Wine growers of the future can easily adapt to mechanisation and enhance their capabilities through basic modifications of pre-existing machinery, in turn providing them with further capacity in an environment that is increasingly requiring us to do more with less.

I International Workshop on Vineyard Mechanization and Grape and Wine Quality

D.N. Newson, R.J. Nettelbeck

precision mechanisation, Australia, financial sustainability, grape quality

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2013.978.41