—story and photograph by Matt Milkovich—photograph by TJ Mullinax
Winery employees tie grapevines to trellises at Oxley Farms in Southwest Michigan in June 2022. The Oxley household nonetheless hires native employees, however, anticipating labor shortages, they solely plant varieties they know will be machine harvested. (TJ Mullinax/Good Fruit Grower)
A few a long time in the past, a wave of mechanization rolled via the Michigan grape trade, when juice-grape growers and bigger wine-grape growers began adopting new harvest and different applied sciences.
As soon as that preliminary wave ran its course, nonetheless, the trade stopped prioritizing additional technological adoption. However with the rising scarcity of employees, rising prices and ubiquity of labor-saving applied sciences, Michigan State College Extension viticulture specialist Mike Reinke thinks the Michigan grape trade is primed for one more wave of mechanization.
In the meantime, some bigger winery operations have responded to labor shortages by hiring H-2A employees. Whereas the federal guest-worker program can present a dependable pool of expert labor, its wage charges are skyrocketing.
Reinke sees extra hope for labor financial savings in precision cover administration and autonomous applied sciences. These new applied sciences are shifting out of the experimental part in different fruit crops and now have extra agronomic instruments to help them. It’s an excellent alternative for Michigan vineyards to “skip a era or two” of know-how adoption, he mentioned.
And with newer mechanical harvesters being gentler than older fashions had been on grapes, many wine grape areas around the globe are abandoning the “romantic notion” that wine varietals should be harvested by hand. Michigan growers want to contemplate taking the identical step, Reinke mentioned.
In Southwest Michigan, the place the vast majority of the state’s 10,000 acres of juice grapes and three,500 acres of wine grapes are grown, vineyardists had entry to a secure, native workforce for many years. However that labor pool is shrinking.
The trade is at a “breaking level” now, with some growers turning to H-2A and others turning to mechanization, grower Chris Oxley mentioned.
The Oxley household grows 550 acres of juice grapes and 150 acres of wine grapes, all machine harvested. They had been a part of the preliminary wave of mechanization in Michigan vineyards. They nonetheless rent native employees, however to avoid wasting on labor they plant solely wine grape varieties they know will be machine harvested. They’ve additionally designed and constructed their very own tractor-mounted pruning machines, Oxley mentioned.
For Dan Nitz, who grows 350 acres of wine grapes in Southwest Michigan, labor and different enter prices maintain going up and grape costs aren’t conserving tempo. Mechanization and rising grapes at scale assist maintain his prices down, he mentioned.
Nitz nonetheless hires as much as 60 employees per 12 months via a labor contractor. They machine harvest most of his grapes, however they hand decide some for wineries that choose it. Leaf pulling, vine tucking and hedging is completed mechanically. Thinning is completed by hand.
Jack Walker, left, and Eric Marsh put together a gondola and tractor earlier than harvest at Arrowhead Vineyards in Southwest Michigan in October 2023. The gondola paces the grape harvester, which fills it with grapes which might be then dumped into semi-trailers. Arrowhead proprietor Dan Nitz machine harvests most of his wine grapes. (Matt Milkovich/Good Fruit Grower)
Northwest Michigan vineyardists are also utilizing mechanization to economize on labor. Shady Lane Cellars in Suttons Bay makes use of a mixture of mechanical and hand labor for cover administration. Machines do the majority of the hedging and pruning, with employees making the ending touches by hand, mentioned winery supervisor Andy Fles.
The 65-acre property winery nonetheless has a dependable base of native employees who harvest all of the grapes by hand. The employees are getting older, nonetheless, and if they’ll’t get replaced, Fles would think about machine harvesting sure varieties.
“However we’re not there but,” he mentioned.
Farther east, on Outdated Mission Peninsula, Jen and Ben Bramer use a mixture of mechanization and H-2A employees to handle about 350 acres of wine grapes for about 35 vineyards.
When the native workforce began drying up greater than a decade in the past, the Bramers constructed and acquired equipment to make up for the shortfall.
“We mechanized as a lot as we are able to, wanting shopping for a harvester, however that’s coming quickly,” Jen mentioned.
Most of their vineyard prospects, feeling their very own monetary strains, at the moment are prepared to just accept mechanically harvested grapes, she mentioned.
The Bramers began hiring H-2A employees in 2018, which “completely modified our enterprise,” Jen mentioned. “We’ve got labor now that may keep the entire season.”
However H-2A is a “double-edged sword,” she mentioned.
“H-2A has doubled our labor prices,” Jen mentioned. “I’m not saying the employees aren’t definitely worth the wage, however the will increase usually are not sustainable.” •
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