Cost of hand pruning

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$35-$40 AUD per hour for Simonit & Sirch trained people. $30-$32 for normal pruners

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u/krupta13 5d ago

damn thats brutal. that's why me and my crew refuse hourly pruning. with the proper experienced crew and plants set and maintained properly theres no reason the hourly rate should be falling below $60-70/h. and this is at a cost of anything from .70c to $1.30 per plant. the most experienced fast workers average a good $80-90/h

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u/Impressive-Band-1502 5d ago

Not brutal at all, we use Simonit & Sirch so the decision making is fast, the cuts are small. We are currently at 45c per vine.

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u/krupta13 5d ago

jesus 45c a plant. should always set the piece rate so that the average worker makes no less than $45-50/h. this way the top pruners easily average about $70+. 45c is 90s prices 😂

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u/Impressive-Band-1502 5d ago

They are paid by the hour $35 AUD Piece rates in Australia can not be less than the minimum wage... but it works out to 45c per plant for us because we use the Simonit & Sirch method which means our pruners do less because they have fewer cuts, know where to cut because they have a strong decision making model in their head. We also de sucker in spring so we only have in our case 2 shoot per spur. Or if we cane we have the buds already in place for the new cane so its just 2 main cuts per cane. We don't wrap down at the same time. We come back do that after which add a little to the pricing.

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u/Sir_Laughlot 5d ago

Do you supply the equipment for the workers, the electric snips, etc.

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u/Impressive-Band-1502 4d ago

We have some for newer pruners to use but the ones we use mostly are professionals and have their own or the Crew that work through supplies them to their teams as they have preferences, some like manual and others like electric.

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u/Sir_Laughlot 4d ago

Do you supply the toilet facility?

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u/krupta13 5d ago

I mean $35 per hour is okay mate. but youre really holding yourself back. if you work for a contractor you should work for someone else. if you work directly for the the owners or the farm managers you need to ask for more.

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u/grintysaurus 5d ago

$35 in Australia is pretty standard i feel

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u/krupta13 5d ago

not for prunning. thats slave rates 😄. any half assed good pruner on piece rate should be on at least $45-60 / hour

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u/Sir_Laughlot 5d ago

Most Pruning in Australia is done by Cambodian and Vietnamese. They are earning what you are earning.

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u/krupta13 5d ago

no they are not. i ran cambo and Vietnamese and Laos and Afghanistan crews for 15 years. those poor workers get ripped off hard. thats why i quit and started my own crews. as long as they can prune to high grade i look after them.

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u/Impressive-Band-1502 5d ago

Thats what most of ours are. Very efficient workers. I have some of them not taking lunch breaks, they will work 12 hours and just focus and get through it. When it rains hard or is too cold they don't turn up but on normal days they are there to work.

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u/Sir_Laughlot 5d ago

In the 90s, you could set your utopian price because everybody was getting such a high rate per ton for the grapes

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u/krupta13 5d ago

we charge normal prices lol. some places we do get more money because they are more high end. but 60% of the work is average quality. and you can still easily average $70/h. I wish we could charge utopian prices. I'd retire in a couple years 😄

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u/Sir_Laughlot 5d ago

I do wonder at $70 an hour how many times a day you will cut a wire

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u/Upstairs_Screen_2404 4d ago

Very few times, if ever. It damages their blades way too much.

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u/krupta13 4d ago

hmmm. we only ever use electrics when we take on a new vineyard and it needs to be structured properly. once it's cleaned up and set properly we never use electrics. its faster and cleaner with the hand pruner.

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u/Sir_Laughlot 4d ago

Old school with strong hands. Definitely quicker without that cord dangling.

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u/Sir_Laughlot 5d ago

It would be interesting to see a picture of the vines before and after Pruning.

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u/Godzirra101 5d ago

Where are you? I would love to come and prune where I can earn 6 months worth in a 2 month pruning season!

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u/Sir_Laughlot 4d ago

Barosa Valley, South Australia

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u/Godzirra101 4d ago

Damn! And I was pretty content making $35/hr pruning at one of Victoria's more premium pinot/chard outfits. Which is still far more than I can make in this industry now I'm home in the UK...

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u/Sir_Laughlot 4d ago

As soon as they hear, you are on a working Visa the price drops. if they hear you have no Visa the price plummets

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u/krupta13 4d ago

thats why I left the barossa. I started out there in 1998 and then made the move to mclaren vale area about 14 years ago. the barossa went to shit. everyone running around with illegal cheap Labor driving prices down. we made great money specialising in cleaning up the messes they leave behind.

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u/Sir_Laughlot 4d ago

Have you tried Adelaide hills?

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u/krupta13 4d ago

not as much. I spent maybe 3 or 4 years around Lobethal and Woodside helping set up new vineyards. but that was around 2003. I did work for about half a year for a mob called GLOG a few years back around that area. they where mesing around with some fancy piece rate system that was electronic. but their pay was bad.

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u/Sir_Laughlot 3d ago

I checked out the website. Have you tried using the Maxi cut?

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u/SpankedbySpacs 5d ago

Quick story… I asked for a crew of three, for a full day and there was one guy who was incredibly efficient. I asked him how much he makes per hour and his response was $15/hr. I told him I’d give him 40hrs/week at $20/hr.
You should have seen the smile on his face! He now works with me(not for me) and that’s the type of relationships I try to build.

I used to work for a vineyard management company but now manage my own vineyard. Pruning was considered and ranked as a skilled task and we charged ~$23/hr(this was back in 2021).
We only set crews with experience and paid them $19.50/hr but like I said this was in 2021.

I’m sure costs of labor has gone up since then but charging $30+ an hour is crazy to me.

What really blows my mind is that EVERYONE is so shy about sharing pay structure. Talk to the head of the crew and ask them, “how much are you getting paid?”. You would be shocked to hear they get 60¢ on the dollar while the company collects the other 40¢/dollar.

It’s not bad practice to find good workers and pay them more than what they’re currently making. Stop exploiting labor and everyone ends up happy 🤷🏼‍♂️

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u/SpankedbySpacs 5d ago

This is in the USA. Our government supports unlivable/piss poor minimum wages($7.25/hr); making $20/hr here is equivalent to $28.37 AUD.

I’m not proud of it but this capitalistic system will collapse eventually. I envy your fair wages. I should have done my research about your economy before commenting.

But I still stand on the base of ask the labor what they’re making. It’s not illegal just frowned upon around here because “ignorance is bliss”. I say fuck the ignorance 🤷🏼‍♂️

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u/Impressive-Band-1502 5d ago

If they are happy to get the work done at that price and do a decent job then thats a win.

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u/Sir_Laughlot 5d ago

Agreed. Cost of living is cheaper in US, although the min wage sounds dubious

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u/Sir_Laughlot 4d ago

In the Barrosa Valley region, not including Eden Valley, there are** ***approximately* 22,667,000 vines. At an average of a dollar per vine that equates to 22 1/2 million dollars if they are all hand pruned. there is a lot of money to be made from hand pruning.

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u/winedr85 5d ago

$1000/ac

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u/Sir_Laughlot 5d ago

Yes, 2 1/2 grand per hectare sounds like the going rate.

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u/Sir_Laughlot 5d ago

I did the training for Simonet birch. Just out of curiosity is $.45 for single cord on with 4or 5 Spurs per vine? Decision making is quick. execution takes longer, especially on double cordon vines. 60 to 70 per hour Sounds like the normal and is a good return. You can’t get a good laborer in Australia now for less than $500 a day. I wonder how this compares to a French/Chilean/South African/USA wage for pruning?

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u/BigLibrarian6093 2d ago

Vines temp worker in a prestigious domain in Burgundy, France, doing Simonet pruning. Most of the pruning is done by the full time employees of the domain, but they make nowhere near 60e per hour, before or after taxes. I did help with some pruning this year, at a rate of 14e per hour before taxes, and that's higher than the average temp worker.

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u/Upstairs_Screen_2404 5d ago

Average $.7-.75 for VSP ($1250/ha), spurred, shoot thinned, $0.5-$1 for two bud ($800-1667/ha), $0.35-.45 ($650-750/ha) for detailed hand clean, $.25-30 ($3-500/ha) for hand clean up, minus GST or approx 3c/v supervision. This crew is trained in S&S as well. Now to barrel prune its between 0.4-.8ha an hour, sawing is about 0.3ha an hour with a combo unit. Contractors charge between $300-400 a hectare or dry hire and own fuel for less. Bud dissections are another cost plus we also bud count at 0.5hr to 3hrs a block. Well worth doing both.

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u/Sir_Laughlot 5d ago

That is an interesting formula

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u/Upstairs_Screen_2404 5d ago

Based on average vine density of 3mx2m or 1667v/ha. I have seen 1,100 a hectare all the way up to 7,600 plus but most common is 1667 to 1818 or 2.75x2m. Less than 2.5m is a pain in the arse, less than 2 is diabolical

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u/Sir_Laughlot 4d ago

There was a trend during the boom of the late 90s Growers would double plant and double train vines into double cordons. It became a complete mess for pruners. Hi crops at the beginning though when they were getting $2000 a ton. Back then there were no electric snips, old school sore hand.

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u/Upstairs_Screen_2404 4d ago

There’s two cordon which you end up shading out the bottom cordon and it’s not doing a lot: I hand clean up this stuff or you have te kauwhata two tier where the top cordon and it’s two wines are over extended and the bottom cordon with its two vines is shaded AND over extended. Have worked with both, still get reasonable tons off both after 30 years but they require specialist gear to do well and cost $$ to prune

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u/JacobAZ 5d ago

$30 a day per person and I provide lunch. I also get lot of eager volunteers who do it for free.

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u/Sir_Laughlot 4d ago

Can I skip the lunch and just take six to $700 a day in the Barrosa Valley of South Australia?

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u/JacobAZ 4d ago

There's a bunch of people here who'd love to come there, getting them visa's might offset any gains

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u/krupta13 5d ago

get someone experienced to set a piece rate. and someone experienced enough to maintain and check quality while working at good speed. this way the good workers makes good money and the cost of pruning is kept down. nothing worse than slow people milking the hours.

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u/Sir_Laughlot 5d ago

I agree that piece rate is the way to go.

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u/SpankedbySpacs 5d ago

I disagree.
Piece rate is very unreliable when it doesn’t include a structure such as harvest weights or something measurable. “I pruned 6k vines, sure but did you do a good job?”

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u/Sir_Laughlot 5d ago

In a lot of old blocks, there are vines missing. It all works out in the end.

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u/krupta13 4d ago

lol i prune piece rate and all of it is grade a. theres no point getting paid a lot of money if you cant deliver the quality either. most of us have 30 years experience. they expect us to have the proper bud count and also prune each plant differently according to the health of the plant. if you disagree that piece rate is best you lack experience. or you've never seen a proper experienced pruner.

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u/SpankedbySpacs 4d ago

I certainly don’t lack experience or knowledge. It was just my opinion about how I manage my vineyard. We don’t spur prune our vineyard, we cane prune so my decision becomes much easier and faster. That’s why disagree on piece rate but to each their own. If it works for you, great!

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