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New Holland launches the new Combi-Grape sorting system

New Holland introduces more to its range of on-board destemming and sorting systems for its Braud grape harvesters.

July 7, 2020  By Fruit and Vegetable


The new compact sorting system with a roller sorting table under the destemmer is available for grape harvests. Photo courtesy of New Holland.

Farm machinery manufacturer New Holland launched the Combi-Grape, a new sorting system available on its Braud 8030L compact grape harvester.

The new addition was unveiled at SITEVI 2019, an international exhibition of equipment for vine-wine, olive and fruit and vegetable production, which took place in Montpellier, France in November 2019.

According to New Holland’s release, this new destemming and sorting system offers an intermediate harvest quality between a standard destemmer and the Opti-Grape. It has been developed to meet the needs of winemakers looking for a destemming and sorting system of premium-red varietals.

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Since 2002, all New Holland Braud grape harvesters can be fitted with a destemmer. A feature, the company says, that has undergone continuous improvements over the last two decades.

The Opti-Grape, launched in 2013, was the first New Holland Braud on-board sorting table. It features a destemmer, two sorting tables with rollers and an air-cushion sorting system to clean the grape harvest.

The new Combi-Grape, unveiled in 2019, features a sorting table with specific rollers under a standard destemmer. The receiving conveyors feed the grapes into the destemmer. The stems are expelled at the back of the machine. All the free grapes and the MOG (Material Other than Grape) fall on the sorting table, which features open rollers that allow the grapes to fall into the hopper. Leaf pieces and petioles are guided by the rollers to the side of the machine and drop down to the floor.

The Combi-Grape is able to remove all the petioles inside the harvest, delivering a higher crop quality compared to the standard destemmer.

“Processing the grapes can be done directly, without crushing the harvest and with exceptional cleanliness. Our machine is perfectly sized for the needs of medium-sized vineyards. The controls are at the driver’s fingertips, making operation easy! The 8030L Combi-Grape is a concentrate of Braud know-how,” said Pierre Cayrouse, grape harvester marketing specialist at New Holland France, in the release.

For the Combi-Grape, the sorting table was built to work in very diverse conditions. Depending on the crop varieties, it can process grapes of different sizes. The operator can adjust from the cab the distance between rollers from 14 millimetres (mm) to 23 mm. The roller speed can be controlled from the multifunction handle to adapt the system’s capacity to the yield. The sorting table can slide to the side of the machine to facilitate daily washing operation.

The Combi-Grape is available on the Braud 8030L only and works in most conditions and grape varieties.

 


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