This is the back end of a vineyard tractor fitted with a spray attachment. You can see how the tractor is built to ride up over the tops of the vine rows. The spray nozzles are directed at the sides of the vines to ensure complete coverage. Some of the nozzles on this sprayer are folded in against the top of the tractor. When he's spraying, the grower swings those nozzles out to the sides so he can spray nearly five rows with each pass. The whole thing in action looks like some kind of alien creature.
The cutting machine sounds a little like Edward Scissorhands doing his thing.
This time, however, the grower is not spraying. On the front end of his
tractor is another attachment that holds half a dozen or more rotating
blades. As he plies the rows, the spinning blades cut long vine stems
from the sides and tops of the plants without touching the precious grape bunches hanging below. If I'm not mistaken, this is a parcel of sauvignon blanc grapes.
Wow. Would love to see that thing in action!
ReplyDeletewhat a machine I haven't seen it before.
ReplyDeletemitch, I'm not as proficient with video as you are. :(
ReplyDeletegosia, they're pretty common around here.
Agricultural machinery is increasingly amazing. A quite incidental piece of a TV programme I saw showed a monster machine for harvesting low-growing fruit of some kind - it drove slowly along the rows, carrying several labourers lying on their fronts (well padded, fortunately), while they reached down to pick the fruit and put it into the collecting belts that ran below them just above the trackways between the rows of plants.
ReplyDeleteautolycus, that sounds complicated, not to mention dangerous!
ReplyDelete