Australia: Viticulture

Equal pay for women, introduced in the latter part of the 1960s, had some unforeseen consequences. One was a major stimulus to the development of mechanized viticulture, initially mechanical harvesting, which is responsible for about 80% of the nation’s crop, but in due course extending to pruning and, in the latter part of the 1980s, to all aspects of canopy management during the growing season. mechanical pruning machines, which trim the canopy, lift and clip the foliage wires, pluck leaves in the fruiting zone, while simultaneously spraying herbicides were already common by the early 1990s. They have, however, fallen out of favour in some regions, and particularly in Coonawarra.