This novel equipment obtained the prestigious Technical Innovations Contest award at the 2005 EIMA fair. The chemical desuckering machine mod.116 is suitable for desuckering vineyards with espalier training systems. It carries out this task by applying a liquid containing a drying solution, which is usually gluphosinate ammonium-based (in the concentration recommended by the producer of the chemical compound), to the lower part of the plant, below the fruit-bearing branches, thus wetting the suckers and drying them out completely within about 10-15 days of the treatment. It is applied to the front of the tractor and carries out the operation on the row to the right of the tractor. The effective height for working from the ground may vary from 500 mm to 800 mm depending on the working height of the liquid delivery head. The working head of the Chemical Desuckering machine mod. 116 is pendulum mounted and supported by a framework whose position can be determined by the tractor driver by means of vertical and horizontal hydraulic movements.
The area to be treated is shielded laterally from the surrounding area by a soft PVC protection, and above by a pair of brushes in synthetic fibre facing each other so as to guarantee closure as it passes stakes and vine stocks and by a pair of gull-wing doors in transparent material so as to be able to see and inspect the nozzles from above. This excludes the possibility of the product being dispersed into the environment and to areas of vegetation where it could damage production.
The economic advantages are very high insofar as in average conditions of use you can achieve a productivity of 1h/ha compared to about 30 h/ha for work done manually, making the purchase of the machine worthwhile starting from a surface area of 2,35 hectares. It is also favourable in comparison with the alternatives of mechanical removal by abrasion, since the machines belonging to the same price range have a productivity of 3 h/ha.
Even more interesting than the above-mentioned economic advantages are the advantages in terms of vineyard health, seeing that this operation does not damage the vine stock, preventing inoculation of diseases of the wood and other diseases.
The machine is available in the classic one-row version mod.116 and the two-row version mod. 216.