The Kleinberg Mature Vines facility in the Hex River Valley held its official opening on 16 February. It offers table grape growers a vine maturation service within the establishment process, in the period between when vines leave the nursery where they have been cultivated and when they are planted by the grower.
The facility’s management stresses that they are not a nursery. They receive newly grafted, dormant vines from nurseries, store them, treats them, grow them, and in the growing process, shape them into mature-stemmed, trained vines to enable simultaneous planting and trellising on behalf of growers and nurseries.
Table grape grower Francois Rossouw from Mooigezicht Estates says: “This is truly a world-class facility, with state-of-the-art technology that will definitely add value for our industry’s growers.” He explained that the uniform development of the vines and the specialised growing material that remains around the roots at planting were both significant improvements for planting new vineyards.
The current standard practice for planting vineyards is that growers plant small, newly grafted vines that are just emerging from dormancy directly into the soil in the new vineyard. The process of maturing young vines is time-consuming and labour-intensive that requires considerable water and fertilizer inputs. Some young vines fail to take root and die during this time.
The facility offers a value-adding alternative to this process, by maturing new vines in a protected environment before planting them. The vine stems are grown to trellis height and split into two stems, ready for immediate trellising.
Kleinberg takes delivery of newly created dormant vines and stores them in cold storage under dormant conditions. Only dormant vines that have undergone hot water treatment will be admitted to the facility.
Kleinberg Mature Vines management
“The professional service offer and the proximity of this facility to many of our clients in the Hex River Valley and surrounds will definitely allow them to add value to the planting process for growers”, says Jaco Engelbrecht from Voorgroenberg Nursery in Wellington.
This new facility has been established on Kleinberg Farm, an existing table grape production unit. Kleinberg MD Johan Kriegler explained that the concept was originally developed as an in-house service for the farm.
“When considering the time and input challenges of establishing and nurturing young vines planted in situ in the vineyards, we realised that vineyard establishment could be achieved faster, more cost-effectively, and more successfully if we matured our vines and grew the stems to trellis height in a dedicated facility that provided the vines with optimum care, rather than let them struggle to grow from the first bud in the soil,” explained Kriegler. He added that when it occurred to them that all table grape growers face similar challenges, they saw that this initiative could be extended as a service to other clients.
For more information:
Johan Kriegler
Kleinberg Mature Vines
Tel: +27 23 356 9005
Email: admin@krieglerfarms.co.za