We’ve been doing some things in the vineyard that I’m very excited about in our continuing efforts to reduce our carbon footprint. Our biggest investment is an all-electric tractor made by Monarch. It will primarily be used for mowing and “under the vine cultivation” since we do not spray any herbicides. When herbicides are sprayed in a vineyard, the tractor or ATV drives once in every row. The herbicide is highly effective killing the weeds wherever sprayed.
However, we believe that spraying herbicides negatively impacts soil health, water ways and the environment. Instead, we implement an organic practice of under the vine cultivation. We’ve been doing this for over 25 years. To do this, we drive the tractor up to six times in every row over the course of four weeks to cut the roots of the weeds that grow around the trunks of the vines. Every time we drive a diesel tractor, it emits more greenhouse gases and hence why we transitioned to electric.

The first job for the Monarch was one that I was not anticipating. We converted a block of cordon pruned vines to cane pruned.

Cordon Pruned

Cane Pruned

This means that the vineyard crew needed to saw off large cordon arms. We had electric saws but needed power in the vineyard, so we used the onboard power and plug-ins from the tractor. Check it out here: