UC Davis Review Looks At How Machines Help Wine Grape Industry Survive Labor Shortage

Wine grape growers, like most of the farming economy, are facing increased labor costs and labor shortages, which make it difficult to manage and harvest a vineyard while maintaining profitability. A new review by researchers at UC Davis takes a look at how growers can best utilize existing equipment. Kaan Kurtural, professor of viticulture and enology says grape growers once could depend on a transit workforce that would come in work the land, and then move on to other crops. But that’s not happening anymore.

“As our vineyard sizes increase, it’s not possible to get over these vineyards in a reasonable amount of time with the labor crews that we have.  So, the option right now, that’s on the horizon is to adapt to the new reality and incorporate more mechanization.”

Kurtural noted hopefully that technology and research will spill over to table grapes into the future. He noted their research indicates that using machines during harvest can save an operation roughly 50%. Kurtural added mechanization saves labor costs without compromising grape quality. He added they developed touchless experimental vineyard, which he pointed out resulted in very little labor needs. And when they focused on this touchless vineyard, the first focused on labor savings.

“But what we found as a footnote is actually much better for these systems too, these trellises since they’re developed in California now, they are more adapted to our climate, rather than using the trellises that were developed in Bordeaux or France that would be much cooler and not adapted to our reality of heat.”

Click Here to check out UC Davis' review.

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