Day in the life of a viticulturalist

Birds, Birds and More Birds.

Age old struggle of man and beast, well grape growers and imported grape thieves.

Starlings, Black Birds, Thrush, Finch, Myna!

Last day of January and focus is all about getting the remaining bird nets on the vines (exclusion) making sure our new laser bird control systems are running. This is new this season, automatic lasers that run off solar and batteries that scan a green laser through the vines at random patterns, this triggers and prey response in the birds and they move off to greener pastures (fingers crossed)

Why is bird damage / thievery so important I hear you ask?  The damage bit is the worst in my mind, half pecked berries are open to rot, rot equals cost of dropping fruit on the ground and even worse the winery rejecting fruit.  Pure theft can be heart breaking too, as the harvesters roll in the tonnes or kilo per vines just is not there!

In the coming few weeks we will be talking about harvest; chardonnay is the first cab off the rank and our Ohiti Gravels some of the first fruit harvested in Hawkes Bay each vintage.