The Wine Blokes

By Jon F. 

Here in Australia we traditionally use tractors in our vineyards to implement numerous activities such as grass mowing, towing trailers, trimming, leaf plucking, harvesting, and vineyard spraying.  There are numerous spraying applications each season in a vineyard, including fungicide application and pest control. Sitting in a tractor all day and sometimes all night going up and down vineyard row after row is not my idea of a good time, and even for the most avid vineyard tractor driver it can be mind numbing at times. So it was with a little humour, but also amazement that I found these vidoes of vineyard spraying in Champagne, France. Using you guessed it, a helicopter. 

Helicopters and light planes have been used for years to spray broad acre crops all over the world, and crop dusting pilots have created a legendary reputation for themselves with their daring manouveres, and many ex fighter pilots still get there thrills post airforce by flying crop dusters.

The French however seem to have there own style, and these guys are certainly worthy of the daredevil status.  They’ve used helicopters for years to decrease frost risk by just hovering over the vineyards, but this is something else.

Take a peak at the following videos, cool music also:

[kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/wJQNQxDYfgA” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /]

[kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/45UyEtTnXTw” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /]