We were wandering around in the Stonewall vineyard, in the Santa Lucia Highlands AVA of Monterey County, where Estancia Estates carefully grows some of their Pinot Noir grapes. They had just finished harvest and were still tending to the vines in preparation for Winter and the coming Spring. It was awesome to be out in the vineyard learning about some of their sustainable practices and the machinery used to make their lives easier.
Vineyard Manager, Jason Melvin, described some of the things that they do before the vines go dormant for the Winter. One is to do a last fertilizing as a “root flush” so that the nutrients will be at the ready when the Spring comes. Another is to keep a native grass cover crop to protect and feed the soil throughout the year.
As we stood in the vineyard, we watched their tractor going through the rows, trimming under the surface of the soil in an effort to keep out some weeds. They have this specially designed tractor attachment that cuts an inch or so under the dirt between each vine to get the weeds. It very carefully moves along and the little mechanism senses where the vine is as it cuts along. This is much more efficient than weeding by hand and much better for the environment than using chemicals to kill the weeds.
Check it out:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fP0HtIZxMY[/youtube]
Related articles
- An Excellent Santa Lucia Highlands Pinot Noir (biggerthanyourhead.net)
- Pinot Noir Pick – This Morning (foursightwines.blogspot.com)
- Fall in the Vineyard (windsweptblog.blogspot.com)
Message:Sorry about the video everyone, there was a lot going on around me as I was trying to shoot. Tractors, people, etc. Other than that, it really was cool being in the vineyard and learning about the processes. Cheers!!
No problem Matt we could hear him okay with the tractor noise…What a wonderful way to get rid of the weeds. Thanks for sharing. 🙂
Thanks for the feedback, Bev! I think we need to get one of those rigs for our backyard!
One of those rigs would handle our backyard in one swipe, and rip the yard up as it is doing so, but I’m game. And thanks Bev, I’m looking in to a little bit better camera that has a better mic on it.
Just think…if we started doing the yard with one of those tractor dealios, we wouldn’t have to mow or water much longer and our ROI would come pretty quickly! The down side is that our yard would look like a ripped up field…
I really enjoyed this post. You explain this topic very well. I really love your blog and I will definetly bookmark it! Keep up the interesting posts!