Robert,
Whenever your grapes get into full swing, can you post a thread showing the harvesting, etc....
Are they manually harvested? Do you use Migrant workers or locals, etc....
The different aspects of agriculture in different parts of the country are fascinating to me.
Chris
I thought I had a thread on here about my harvest before but I couldn't locate it. I will try and find some pics and post them.
As for a crash course on how I farm my vineyards I will start with immediately after harvest. Once the harvest is done and the leaves start to fall I start walking every row and check every post (200 per acre) for any that are broke. If I find a broken post I pull the staples and remove the post and lay it down under the trellis. If it isn't too wet and muddy I will also lay down 300 pounds of potash per acres at this time as well.
Once the posts are checked I hire migrants to trim my grapes. They do a decent job, not great but their fast and some are better then others.
When the vineyards are all trimmed I run the rotary cutter through them chopping up the trimmings so that I can then walk through every row and tie up any vines that are down. I run a no tie system where the canes are wrapped around the top wire but occasionally you still have to tie some up that either came loose or if a cane got damaged or died and I have to pull up a new shoot.
When thats done I get a slight break from the physical work. When spring hits and the weeds start to grow I go in there and spray under the trellis and the row centers as well before the weeds hit 6" high. If I have the time I will do this after harvest once the leaves are off as well but usually its not a great time of the year to try that. If we get a lot of rain in the spring I weed spray more often as I need to keep spraying before the weeds get too tall. Once the canopy starts filling in then it chokes off a lot of the sunlight from reaching the floor so weeds are not as big an issue during the summer. You just need to stay ahead of them in the spring time.
Spraying wise for the canopy starts when the shoots are 1-3" in length. I usually spray twice before bloom then around 3-5 post bloom sprays depending on the weather and any possible pest issues. knock on wood I have not had to deal with very many pests and last year I didn't spray any pesticide in the vineyards as there was nothing worth addressing. Late in the summer you basically sit back and watch the grapes ripen as there isn't a lot to do other then scout the vineyards to keep an eye on things before a problem develops.
When the grapes reach at minimum 15.5 brix we can harvest. The higher the sugar the more their worth but again the weather dictates a lot of this. Cold, rainy days keep the sugar down as you need the sun to help ripen them. If you have a very heavy crop then you need a lot more time to get the berries to the proper level. Too heavy a crop and you may not reach that level. When their ready I have a custom harvester come in and harvest for me. He uses a pull type Gregorie to harvest. He does all the scheduling with the processors and trucking so all I have to do is pay him at the end of the harvest. I'm still too small to justify having my own harvesting equipment. I'm at 33 acres and feel I need to be in the 80-100 acre range at the minimum to warrant buying the equipment needed.
A harvest crew has usually one harvester, 2 tender tractors and two trucks. If were doing everything with bulk bins its fast. If you have to transfer boxes then you need a 3rd tending tractor as its a much slower process and you get less crop per tending tractor then with the gondolas. So your looking at 4 guys minimum for harvesting up to 6 guys depending on how your transfering the grapes from the vineyard to the trucks. You also need reliable equipment and to pull the gondolas you need powerful narrow vineyard tractors. So it takes a lot more equipment that really only gets used one month out of the year which is why I am hesitant to get into my own harvesting any time soon. When I am bigger then I will as it will allow me to have more control in my operation and less reliance on others but I'm not looking forward to taking that step just yet. A new self propelled Korvan is around $300k, the gondolas are around $20k, cabbed narrow FWA vineyard tractors are around $45k then you have the trucks and what ever system you go with. I would probably rent the trucks from Penske but would still need to buy 53' flatbed trailers as well as 1 ton boxes to haul the grapes in (certain plants are only set up to accept one style of box so it limits us) I'm not sure the cost on these boxes now but I would expect them to be in the $200 range each for a 4x4x4 poly lined box and lid. Each trailer will hold 26 of them and you want a few extras just in case something happens to one or if your just about finished with a field you can finish it and run those boxes in seperate with a pickup instead of running the tractor trailer again.
So thats a quick outline of my operation. I would like to have around 100 acres total as thats about max for what I feel I can do without needing to hire much help. At that size though I would probably let the migrants tie as well as do the trimming. That size farm makes it easier to justify the proper equipment which right now I have to use everything for multiple jobs between planting corn, haying, vineyard and other chores around the farms. Its easier to keep one tractor hooked to the weed sprayer since its tied into the tractor more and to remove it requires unbolting a boom, controller, removing the hoses that run from the 3pt hitch tank to the front boom and putting everything away only to have to hook it back up a month later. A bigger farm would allow me to keep it hooked up as it would be getting used a lot longer each time and by the time I make it through once I will get a slight break before needing to start again. Same with the sprayer for the canopy, once its hooked up you leave it hooked up till harvest when you switch over to the gondola.
