Another new year of wine for wine is here, and most wineries in California have positive thoughts during a good season. And again this year, the leaders of the vineyards and the wineries began waving the red flag in front of the American winemakers about the shortage of labor. For some, this is a precursor to the message that wine prices will rise; at least for Californian wines. I suppose that everything related to labor shortage or immigration is a code that speaks about price increases.
It is reported that many workers from the southern part of the country choose other opportunities not related to agriculture and the wine business in California. At first glance, the majority of absorbing wines to some extent imply simple demand and supply of labor, which is about 30% of the cost of wine. But with a more thorough analysis, there are other components related to hourly wages - this is called legislation. Finding people who want to work in California agricultural enterprises is only part of the problem.
In Spreckels, CA, a city with a resident population of about 750, district wardens approved the construction of housing to accommodate 800 seasonal workers. The plan was proposed by Tanimura and Antle, a large agricultural company that needs seasonal workers for its agricultural business. But the cost of housing has become prohibitively high for their seasonal employees. The company has built 100 dormitories, two-bedroom apartments, on their property for seasonal workers. Then the city will have to cope with the support costs for these tenants: transportation, recreation, infrastructure, health care, security, etc.
The bottom line is that the lack of agricultural labor has a different cost, exceeding the hourly wage. Obviously, the consumer must pay all related labor costs, whether taxes, wages, or private industry; everything that adds to the cost is absolutely transmitted to the consumer. So, perhaps, the cost of labor in the wine industry contributes to the creative use of technology / mechanization in the vineyard. By contrast, two years ago, the wine industry on the central coast of California said it cost about $ 22,000 per acre for planting and maintaining new vines in the first year. Simply put, an 11 acre vineyard will cost about $ 250,000 a year to get to the first year of production, hopefully in the third year. It is expensive.
Linear line vines are intense, especially if you want to maximize the quality and quantity of fruit production. Each vine must be constantly visited. Depending on the type of grapes and the vineyard manager’s preferences, the width between rows and how closely the vines are planted in each row, the number of vines per acre can vary. Wines per acre can range from 1,376 to 2,756. And not only grapevines need attention. Grilles also require maintenance; such as lifting and lowering wires. All activity dictates some work. So, is there a new solution for labor availability and cost increases?
Many wineries and owners of vineyards are turning to mechanization in order to improve the cost of maintaining vines and harvesting grapes. French vineyards probably led this evolution in agriculture by Pellenc, which produces equipment that can do almost everything in a vineyard that works intensively; all stages of work in the vineyard. “We conducted testing at the cost of mechanized management of vineyards compared to cost savings compared to identical tasks performed manually, the results are positive for us, the owner of the vineyard and, I hope, at the consumer,” says John Felice from Pellenc US “What is even more impressive for our customers, there is no reduction in the quality of wine compared to mechanized pruning and harvesting compared to manual pruning and harvesting of fruit. ” Depending on the inherited winemaking / vineyard methods, driving a mechanized vineyard can even improve quality.
Technically, winemaking is an agricultural activity; as soon as one task is completed, another begins, it is an infinite loop. Then there are some processes that continue throughout the year, such as spraying and maintaining the floor of a vineyard; such weed control. Until 2000, this was a task that had to be done manually. Now automation can replace manual work in the vineyard. Mechanization can perform some impressive precision tasks in a vineyard, such as:
· The process of maintaining a healthy and productive vineyard begins after the leaves fall out of the vines. That is, when the preliminary pruning passes through the vineyard, which leaves about 12 "reeds on the cordon.
o Pre-pruning helps prevent the spread of the disease.
o Storage between vines and rows free of debris will also help in controlling pests.
o There are several schools of thought that pre-pruning will also make the final pruning process faster.
· “If the owner of the vineyard really wants to save on labor costs, he can use one of our high-end autonomous multi-purpose machines, which pre-cut, cut the cordon to a given number of buds, pull out old canes from the wires, mulch canes and clean the floors of the vineyards and even fit the wires to new heights, ”says Felice. Some people want to leave two or three buds, and this task can be performed automatically. Thanks to automated precision cutting equipment, the infrared sensor will monitor the cordon and cut canes to a certain height from the cordon, leaving the remaining prescribed / desired number of buds. This process also includes last year's cane mulching, then debris on the floor and incorporation back into the soil.
“If the vineyard manager really wants aesthetics of precision, they will use a two-person crew to follow the shears to completely clear any vines,” says Felice. "Actually, next year's harvest can be analyzed from the buds that we developed during the growing season to determine the potential for next year's yield."
· During the growing season, there are some requirements for spraying in a vineyard, even in an organic vineyard.
· Vineyard flooring control is an endless process and is very time consuming and can be performed with automation even during the spraying operation, which also saves on childbirth.
In one mechanized demonstration during the 3-day period, in an actual vineyard, a crew of 20 people ran in the test room, pruning compared to a mechanical precision shears. The tasks were to cut and pull the cane out of the wire mesh. Manual control can perform tasks in the amount of 32 vines / hour / day. The mechanized operation performed the same tasks and cut 90 vines / hour / day. It was reported that the quality of work is comparable to manual labor.
It would be a leap to simply say that the tasks of a mechanized vineyard are about three times faster than the operations of a manual vineyard. However, we know that manual labor is one of the elements of production, which cannot be accelerated by paying more per hour. We know that traditionally automation is constantly being improved in comparison with quality and productivity, that is, with automatic machines. There are several things that machines and automation can and will do better. Robots have proven that this is an example.
If a vineyard owner does not have to pay for health care, housing, recruitment and support costs totaling about $ 4,000 per month per employee in a crew of 20 people (which is $ 80,000 per month), it will not take long to realize value savings with automation.
Automated grape harvest has been the most recognized bid for several years. Harvesting is also another area where labor costs are critical, and affordable labor is a problem for vineyards. Grape harvesting is the most important issue at a winery; they are interested in how well the fruit is collected and the amount of garbage when the fruit gets into a crush. Here again, an automated harvesting process ensures the delivery of quality fruit to the winery and quickly.
Perhaps the automation of vineyards will keep the cost component of the production of wine production under control, rather than affect the quality.
