Annual trimming and ditch maintenance in vineyards can be a problem if accessibility is difficult between the vine row and the hedge or ditch.
Regular agricultural tractors and their hedge cutters are often too wide and too heavy to go down narrow passages. One answer to this problem is to use special smaller and lighter hedgecutters adapted for use on narrow and low horsepower tractors down to 20hp and even front loaders and mini excavators.
For many years Vitifruit Equipment has been supplying such tools from two manufacturers; the French firm Coupeco and the Italian firm Marolin. Both have their specialities including multiple circular saw heads, rotating knife blades, reciprocating cutter bars and flails.
In order to have a tool which both folds up narrow enough behind or in front of the tractor and can go down restricted passages but also has enough vertical reach to side up tall windbreaks is a challenge but these companies do precisely that.
For windbreaks the rotating knife blades are good for annual trimming; however to deal with thicker branches the knife blades can be swapped out for circular saws; Vitifruit Equipment have one of these available for hire. When tidying ditches and for general hedge cutting the flail heads are used and are a Marolin speciality particularly when using very small tractors as low as 20hp.
For small areas Vitifruit Equipment also supply high power long life battery hand held hedge trimmers with optional pole extensions.
Circular saws
