[AT] Wine Growers Rototiller

[Chuck Bealke]

Before returning to the US from Italy last week stumbled across a strange (to me anyway) rototiller used by an Italian farmer to run through his vineyard on the Venetian island of Massorbo. It’s PTO powered and he runs it behind a Kubota 4-wheel drive RX 2350 tractor, which he likes a lot. Thought it strange that a powered rototiller - kind of a sharp-edged roller - without aggressive digging tines to thoroughly dig and mix up the dirt and grass - would be so popular, but so it was in this attractive and storied low acreage specialty wine growing place. Conversation was through a sharp tour guide turned interpreter asking my questions of the farmer. 
He simply makes two passes in opposite directions down alternate rows between the vines every other year, so it is kind of a minimum tillage operation. It mixes the topsoil and thin grass to leave a smooth soft surface. One of his biggest challenges is the occasional flooding of the islands with water containing some salt from the Adriatic Sea. This has evidently been accelerated by the same global warming that has really dried out much of Italy. The talk here on haying reminds that on a four-hour train ride from Rome to Venice, I saw a dried out country with many fields of cut hay laying in very thin rows. 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.antique-tractor.com/pipermail/at-antique-tractor.com/attachments/20211026/6f8265db/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: IMG_3203.jpeg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 198735 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.antique-tractor.com/pipermail/at-antique-tractor.com/attachments/20211026/6f8265db/attachment.jpeg>