Mechanical pulling of vine shoots in viticulture
During the pruning of vines, the shoots are left on the trellis and then removed. These shoots were formerly bundled and used to light the fire in the fireplace or stove. Today they are hardly used anymore and are left between the rows where they are shredded to provide humus to the vine. Manual shoot pulling is tedious and represents a significant labor cost. Mechanical shoot pulling thus allows substituting this tedious manual work with mechanical work. A saving of 15 to 30 hours of labor per hectare is possible depending on the parcel layout.
What is mechanical shoot pulling?
Mechanical shoot pulling can be applied to long pruning (Guyot) methods. In this case, pre-pruning is eliminated. Indeed, a certain length of the shoots must be preserved to be able to grab them. Before the machine passes, the vine must be pruned and a cane and spur chosen. The machine extracts the shoots from the trellis and can shred them simultaneously, which saves even more time. After the machine passes, only tying remains to be done. Besides the potentially significant time savings with mechanized shoot pulling, the advantage of this mechanization method is to maintain the existing training system, with some minor adjustments: the main change concerns habits during tying or manual pruning, to avoid the cane remaining wrapped around the support wire for example, or to organize the orientation of the shoots to facilitate grasping by the machine. These few adjustments are largely offset by the time saved: elimination of pre-pruning, combined shredding, much faster shoot pulling.
What machines are available?
Two types of machines exist for pulling shoots: one pulls the shoots from the side and the other from above. The two main machines on the market are:
- Provitis
- Viteco
What are its advantages?
- Shorter working times for mechanical pullers: 25.6 h/ha for Provitis and 25.5 h/ha for Ero (including pruning and shredding), compared to 38.7 h/ha manually and 32.9 h/ha with pre-pruning and manual pulling, where shredding time must be added.
- Wood pulling costs are €180/ha for Provitis and €150/ha for Ero, compared to €320/ha manually and €222/ha with pre-pruning.
What are its disadvantages?
- After machine passage, 3 h/ha of manual finishing must be added.
- The Viteco machine causes regular wire breaks, related to wire tension, and requires well-anchored head stakes.
- The Provitis requires the shoots to be oriented on the side of the machine passage.
Sources
- Chambers of Agriculture of Charente and Charente-Maritime, / Summary of wood pulling machine trials
- French Institute of the Vine and Wine Occitanie, PRECISION HEADING PRUNING, HEDGE PRUNING AND MINIMAL PRUNING
- TechniLoire, / Wood pulling: Should we switch to mechanical?
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