🍷 Vineyard tractor driver

A vineyard tractor driver is a worker who drives a narrow tractor between the rows of vines. Some models stand over the rows like a gateway, and these are called straddle tractors. Such a machine sprays the vines, mows the grass, trims the tops and works the soil.

The US classification O*NET describes the job broadly. The driver hitches implements, sprayers among them, mixes chemicals and loads them into the tank, and applies fertiliser or crop-protection products. He or she also weighs and hauls the crop, and inspects, adjusts and services the machine, reporting any faults.

Take one real model. The maker, Pellenc, describes its OPTIMUM 245 as a machine for narrow vineyards that works over two or three rows at once. The row width is set from the cab, anywhere from 0.9 to 1.5 metres. The whole machine is 2.53 metres wide and 3.5 metres high. Clearance under the beam is 1.5 to 1.75 metres, so it can pass over the vines. Sprayers, toppers and a mower hook onto it.

The driver works in the inter-row, the strip of ground between the rows; the site has a page on it, Inter-row. A grape picker, by contrast, often works by hand. In California hand picking survives on steep slopes and in vineyards not designed for machines, though that is a small share of the acreage.

So the next time you see a narrow machine squeezing over a row, it is not a toy but a workplace with a cab. For neighbouring trades see Professions in the world of wine.