Agricultural technology and bravado bring Adelaide Hills vineyard back from its ashes

Just under half of the 40,000 vines at Charles Rosback’s 15ha Bowyer Ridge Vineyard were damaged in the December 20 fire that burned 25,000 hectares of land and destroyed more than 70 homes and 200 vehicles through the Adelaide Hills in 2019.

A third of the 3000 ha of vineyards in the region were in the scar of the fire and about 500 ha of vines spread over 60 vineyards suffered damage.

The flames arrived just yards from Rosback’s home nestled in the vineyard where he grows some of the region’s most prized chardonnay grapes in a cool climate for several top local wineries.

Rosback also runs GLOG Viticulture, a vineyard management company.

The MaxiCut system at work in the vineyard.

Despite some initial advice to let the burnt vines recover as well as possible until winter, by mid-January Rosback had assembled a team of volunteers to begin restoring the vineyard.

About 15 kilometers of irrigation tubing and 1,450 poles were replaced on the property and an additional 45 km of irrigation was repaired to replenish thirsty vines with water.

GPS technology was used to assess the most affected vines and in what was considered a drastic step by some, the team cut about 25 percent of the vines to ground level and heavily pruned an additional 20 percent.

“As a business owner and winemaker, I’m very proactive in my approach to things and it didn’t take us very long to come up with a plan to act quickly and very comprehensively. cut the vines, ”Rosback said.

The quick action allowed new shoots to form in replacement trunks before the end of the growing season last year.

A little over 18 months later, 85% of fully cut vines have fully recovered.

The vineyard produced a good harvest of Chardonnay grapes this vintage and should resume full production for the 2022 vintage.

“I planted this vineyard myself in 2002 and have it burned and had to walk through and cut these vines down to ground level – emotionally it was very difficult for me,” said Rosback.

“One of the most difficult things with the impact of the fire is probably that it wasn’t entire blocks that burned down, but a few vines here and there all over the vineyard, so you have to deal with those vines. individually.

“The 2020 vintage was a total loss due to the smell of smoke and the direct impact of the fire, so there was a big financial loss in 2020.

“Fortunately 2021 was a pretty good year – prices were up and yields were up, so the bottom line was pretty good despite being about 25% down from our total harvest.”

The vines were pruned with GLOG Viticulture’s MaxiCut system, generally used in winter to cut trunks with Eutypa dieback, to cut trunks a few inches above the ground.

The adapted MaxiCut system, which is essentially a double set of high powered vine shears running on a tractor hydraulic system, can work about 500 meters of vines in an hour.

The system was also used to cut down fire-affected vines in other vineyards in the Adelaide Hills after the bushfire.

GLOG Viticulture Business Development Manager Martha Valkenburg said that while she was not sure how much the mid-summer pruning technique reduced recovery time, it saved huge amounts of money. time in manual work.

The cutting focused on the green shoots.

“We definitely saved a lot of time and money, and using the MaxiCut got the job done on time,” she said.

“I did studies on a vineyard we recently took over that didn’t use MaxiCut after the fires and it took them about six to eight months to do the job we did in a month.

“For the vines that were partially cut with the MaxiCut, we returned to full production in 12 months, which would not have been possible without the technology.

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