More economical muscadine harvesting
Chris Bickers | Aug 06, 2010
As the buyout of tobacco quota drew near, David Allen of Lisbon, N.C., and his father Ray decided to get out of the crop that along with peanuts had been the cornerstone of their operation in southeastern North Carolina.
But what were they going to grow instead? They needed a crop to replace some of the income that the golden leaf had provided for so long.
That crop would only be viable if it performs well on sandy land, can produce income from relatively less land than tobacco requires (since the Allens had access to less land than in the tobacco days) and one that could be produced with less labor, relatively speaking, than tobacco.
An alternative that deserved a close look seemed to be muscadine grapes. They do well on sandy land and can be economically grown on small plots. But for the Allens, there was one problem: If you harvest muscadines by hand, the labor requirement is very high. It was much too expensive to fit in the management plan.
“It is just not feasible to go out and hand pick 12 acres of grapes,” said Ray.
A solution was available — mechanical harvest. But the upfront cost of a harvester would also have been an insuperable obstacle to making any money on a new vineyard.
“It was not realistic to go out and buy a brand new harvester or even a two or three year old harvester,” said David. “It might cost $100,000.”
But David believed he could craft a grape harvester of his own out of material on hand.
“You could say we made it out of the junk pile,” said Ray. “It was a matter of economics. If we had to buy a harvester new, we would need a lot more acreage than we had to make it economical.”
An old flue-cured tobacco harvester provided the superstructure.
“We took it completely apart except for the carriage,” said David. “We moved the driver seat from the bottom to up on top. We built our own conveyor system. And we put in our own shakers to break the grapes off the vines.”
The grapes travel up two conveyors to the top. A cross conveyor discharges them into a vat that is pulled by a tractor down the row next to it.
“You never have over about 100 pounds of grapes on the harvester at any time,” said Ray Allen. “It is a constant flow. We have something that is just as good as a new harvester at a fraction of the cost.”
The Allens started working on their harvester as soon as they planted grapes in 2004. “We never had to hand harvest,” said Ray. “The harvester was ready by the time the grapes were ready. We used it on our first crop. So far we haven’t gotten in a situation where we can’t get the harvester through any part of the crop.”
They have 11 acres of harvestable grapes this year. The first vines wee set in 2004 and will reach full productivity next year.
“I wouldn’t recommend borrowing a lot of money to go into the grape business,” said David. “It is so long before you get a return. But it’s a good business to go into if you have something to support it until it gets into production. We used income from other parts of our operation to finance the vines. Now the vines are carrying their weight.”
The first thing to do is get a contract, said Ray. “I wouldn’t recommend putting grapes in anywhere unless you know you have them sold.”
Ray said grapes will never completely replace tobacco. “There is not going to be enough demand for grape products to replace the income that tobacco provided. Tobacco was a good crop to grow when a lot of people smoked. Now there are so many limits on smoking, and the contracts tobacco growers are getting are so low making a profit is tough.”