Another new year for wine is here, and most wineries in California have positive thoughts about the positive season. Similarly, this year vineyard managers and wineries began waving red flags in front of American wine lovers about the scarcity of the workforce. For some, this is a precursor to information that wine prices will rise; at least for California wines. I think anything related to labor shortages or immigration is a code associated with increasing price increases.
According to reports, many workers from the southern border chose other opportunities unrelated to California's agriculture and wine business. On the surface, most wine absorbers assume, to a certain extent, a simple supply and demand for labor costs, which is about 30% of the cost of wine. However, through more careful analysis, there are other components related to the hourly cost of labor – called legislation. Finding someone who is willing to work in a California agribusiness is only part of the problem.
In Spreekers, Calif., a town with a permanent population of approximately 750 people, county supervisors approved housing construction to accommodate 800 seasonal workers. The plan was proposed by Tanimura and Antle, a large agricultural company that needed seasonal workers to do business in agriculture. However, housing costs have become too high for seasonal employees. The company built 100 dormitory-style, two-bedroom apartments for seasonal workers on their property. Then, the city must deal with the ancillary costs of these tenants - transportation, entertainment, infrastructure, healthcare, security, and more.
The key is that the cost of the agricultural labor shortage exceeds the hourly wage. Obviously, consumers must pay all relevant labor costs, whether they are taxes, wages or private companies; anything that adds cost will definitely be passed on to consumers. Therefore, the labor costs of the wine industry may promote the creative use of technology/mechanization in the vineyard. In addition, two years ago, the wine industry on the Central Coast of California claimed that it only cost about $22,000 per acre to grow and maintain new vines in the first year. In short, an 11-acre vineyard will cost about $250,000 a year to enter the first year of production - hopefully in the third year. That is expensive.
The bottom line, the vines are labor intensive, especially if you want to maximize the quality and quantity of fruit production. Every vine must be taken care of. The number of vines per acre can vary depending on the type of grape and the preference of the vineyard manager, the width between the rows and the distance between the grapes grown in each row. The number of vines per acre ranges from 1,376 to 2,756. And not only the vines need attention. The grid also needs maintenance; for example, lifting wires. All activities determine a certain kind of workforce. So, is there a new labor availability solution and the cost increases?
Many wineries and vineyard owners are turning to mechanization to improve the cost of maintaining grapes and harvesting grapes. French vineyards may lead this development in agriculture by a company called Pellenc, which produces equipment that can handle almost all of the facilities in a labor-intensive vineyard. Work at all stages of the vineyard. "We have tested the cost of mechanized vineyard management, compared to the cost savings compared to the same task performed manually; the results are positive for us, the vineyard owner and the prospective consumer," John Felice of Pellenc US Said. "More importantly, what impresses our customers is that the quality of the wine is not reduced compared to mechanized trimming and harvesting, compared to manual pre-pruning and harvesting of fruits. "Mechanization according to traditional brewery/vineyard practices Vineyard management can even improve quality.
Technically, winemaking is an agricultural activity; after one mission is completed, another mission begins, which is a never-ending cycle. Then there are some processes that last for a year, such as spraying and maintaining the floor of the vineyard; this weed control. Until 2000, these were tasks that had to be performed manually. Automation can now replace the manual work of vineyards. Mechanization can perform some impressive and precise tasks in the vineyard, such as:
• After the leaves fell from the vines, the process of keeping the vineyard healthy and productive began. At that time, pre-pruning through the vineyard left a 12-inch cane on the cordon.
o Pre-trimming helps prevent the spread of disease.
o Keeping debris between vines and vines also helps control pests.
o There are some ideological school pre-pruning that will also make the final pruning process faster.
· "If a vineyard owner really wants to save labor costs, they can use one of our high-end self-contained multi-function machines for pre-pruning, cutting the cordon into a specified number of buds, pulling the old cane out of the wire, covering the Philippine Nice said that the cane and the vineyard floor were cleaned and even the wires were adjusted to new heights. Some people want to leave two or three buds, this task can be done automatically. Using automatic precision trimming equipment, the infrared sensor will track the warning line. It cuts from the cordon to the height of the cane, leaving the prescribed/required number of buds. The process also includes covering the last year's cane, then stacking the debris onto the floor and integrating it back into the soil.
"If a vineyard manager really wants precise aesthetics, they will use two people to trim the trimmer to completely clean up any vines," says Phyllis. "In fact, next year's crops can be analyzed from the buds we developed during the growing season to determine the potential for crop load next year."
• There are some requirements for spray application in vineyards during the growing season, even in organic vineyards.
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Vineyard floor management is a never-ending process and is very labor intensive, even during the spraying operation, which also saves labor.
In a three-day mechanized demonstration, in an actual vineyard, the test allowed a 20-person staff to trim rather than mechanically trim. The task is to trim and pull out the grid lines. Manual operation can complete the task at 32 vines per hour per day. Mechanized operations perform the same task and trim 90 vines per hour/day. According to reports, the quality of this work is comparable to manual labor.
Simply speaking, mechanized vineyard missions are three times faster than manual vineyard operations, which will be a leap forward. However, we know that manual labor is one of the factors of production and cannot be accelerated by paying more per hour. We do know that, traditionally, automation is constantly improving in terms of quality and performance - that is, autonomous vehicles. Machines and automation can and will do better. The robot has proven that this is a good example.
If the vineyard owner does not need to pay for health care, housing, recruitment and assisted labor for a 20-person employee [$80,000 per month], about $4,000 per person per month, then it doesn't take long to automate savings. Amplitude.
Automated grape harvesting has been the most recognized application for many years. Harvesting is another area where labor costs are critical, and available labor is a challenge for vineyards. Harvesting grapes is the most critical issue for wineries; they are interested in the effects of fruit harvesting and the amount of debris. Here, the automatic harvesting process once again provides a fast delivery of quality fruit to the brewery.
Perhaps vineyard automation will control the labor costs of wine production to be controlled over time without compromising quality.
Orignal From: Automatic harvesting of grapes is only part of the cost-saving story of the vineyard
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