​How can you ​plant a new vineyard?

We come back to speak about vineyard tasks as we published in some posts this year. This time, we had the option of speaking about vintage carried out in this season. However, we have preferred to speak about new vineyards what were planted in 2015... We'll speak about vintage in a future post.

A few weeks ago, our friend Oscar (who is from El Provencio) sent some pictures about his planting jobs in his new vineyard to us. Now, there is a new restructuring period so you can change your old vineyards (if they are more than 15 years old) in trellised vines or if you own vine rights you can plant new vineyards. Farmers can receive a refund of 57% of these planted works.

As Oscal told us and as you can see in his pictures, he planted a new vineyard. The planting framework is rectangular so rows are fixed at 3m and the distance between grapevines is about 1.4m (therefore, there are 2,280 grapevines per hectare). Once grapevines have been planted (whose price for each grapevine is about 1.33€), the drip irrigation system has to be installed. The main pipeline is buried at 1m (you can see Oscar while he was watering after planting because the drip irrigation system has not yet been installed). The pipe used in each row is 16mm diameter and each dropper is fixed at 70cm. A dropper can irrigate up 4 liters per minute using a pressure of 3​.5bar. The drip irrigation system has a compensation system to keep the same flow rate at the beginning and the end of the pipeline (it is ideal for long pipelines, e.g., of 300m or more).

Finally, you only have to install all posters. They are galvanized and are 2m height (posters used at the end of each row are 2.2m height). Each poster is fixed at 5,6m (between four grapevines) and after that, 5 wires are installed. Each wire has a special function: ​the first wire is used to tie irrigation pipe and it is installed at 30cm from ground. The second wire is installed at 85cm from ground and it is used to allow grapevines to grow. The third, fourth and fifth wires are used when grapevines are producing grapes and they are fixed at 1.1m, 1.3m and 1.4m... After three years, ​Oscar will be harvesting grapes!!

Versión en español.

Are there stones in your fields?

Do you have any problem with stones? Don't worry, Diego Martínez can solve it in a few days. Diego owns an outsourcing company whose main activity is grinding stones. He is from Ontur (Albacete), but he can work all over Spain as he told us in May when we meet him in Expovicaman Farm Fair.

We have never seen this job performed before so we think it will be really interesting. He uses a ​​Pierres & Cailloux grinder of 2.5m working width. Its weigh is of 3,700kg and his Agrotron TTV 1160 works very fine with it. This tool needs a configuration of 1,000 P.T.O. (it is not possible with 1,000E P.T.O.) as a consequence the tractor's engine is whole day at 2,100 r.p.m. therefore the tractor consumes a whole diesel tank every day. He is a follower of Deutz-Fahr because he had got other tractor brands and he could check that his Agrotron consumes about 5 litres less than other similar models of other brands... it is an important saving in this kind of jobs.

The first step for this task is to carry out a plough deeply (he can do it using subsoilers) to take all stones out surface. Sometimes, if stones are very large, he should work using reverse gear in other case stones can ever break the diesel tank of his tractor. When the work is deep, the working speed is of 1.5km/h. Otherwise, when the work is shallower, e.g., in cereal stubble he can carry out the hectare in 2.5 hours and if stones were placed in rows he can work 1 ha/h. The price is about 100€/h (this price is given by price of his grinder which is about 45,000€ and he is forced to change their teeth every 400 hours of work). The most important advantage is that Diego doesn't waste time in downloading the stone and he doesn't create any cairns where rabbits will be able to breed in the future.

Versión en español.