Vineyard Suckering and Shoot Removers

Our suckering attachment and the shoot removing attachment are actually the same machine. The heads are swapped from left to right and merely rotated from vertical to horizontal to do the two different operations. Depending on the desired effect, head segments are added or subtracted. The changeover takes no longer than a ½ hour.

The new tapered head design makes us the only suckering head that works 360 degrees around the base of the vine for those hard to reach root stock or grafting area suckers. For high wire or extremely tall cordon vineyards, a 2nd short set of heads is added horizontally to work the very top of the trunk and can clean off the bottom of the cordon at the same time.

Suckering

Suckering a vineyard is one of the most challenging operations done. It seems as if you only have 2 weeks (for each variety) when the suckers are easy to knock off. This is why we developed the Acampo Suckering machine. We know that what is needed is an inexpensive and fast machine to get over the acreage each grower has. Slow and expensive equipment have their place at times, but not here.

Fairly straight drip line, early timing, and our specially designed suckering head are the secrets to a good suckering job. Our head’s whips are designed to wrap around the vine trunk completely, and not just the side your tractor is on. For early suckering, we will typically get 100% of the suckers off going every other row. Greatly increasing the acreage you can do in a day. For late suckering (the shoots have started to harden off) you will need to go every row to completely clean the trunk.

The front mount setting allows the driver to keep a good eye on what’s happening with the suckering heads If the driver sees a replant, he has a simple “kill” switch button that momentarily stops the heads until he can get past the young vine. The front mount unit attaches to our standard trimmer lift frame and hydraulically adjusts from 8ft to 11ft vineyard spacing. The suckering heads themselves are modular so you can add or subtract depending on the length of area you need to sucker.

Shoot Removers

Our shoot remover is simply our suckering machine with the heads moved to a horizontal position. The heads rotate so urethane whips make contact with the underside on the cordon. This removes all under growth and as you move the head in closer to the cordon, it will whip around and take off your required amount of top shoots. You can adjust this amount taken off by forward speed, revolutions per minute of the head, or the number of whips used on the heads. The unit is paired with our standard trimmer lift frame and comes with its own stand for storage.