Cane Tying Tool

To those who cane prune and tie their vines I added the new Pellenc Fixion-2 to our tool kit this year. It takes a little getting use to but it is blazing fast. Will add another one next year as my spouse has adopted the one we bought this year. Lasts all day and then some with a full charge. I’m somewhere between 1-1.5hrs per 180 vines in each row and at 36 rows this is a big time saver over other methods for us. Also it’s possible to tie with gloves on which most of our other methods do not allow…cold fingers in Spring is no fun. We have had plenty of brilliant vineyard ideas that succumbed to cold fingers. Theoretical meets practical is a great equalizer.

Roederer and few other folks use them in our area, I need to see one in action!

Does that machine tie or adhere with a small staple?

TR - It actually ties with your choice of 4 different coated wire materials. We chose the photo degradable wire that breaks down in ~8 months. You can select from 4 settings that does different number of twists which also allows you to get the cane tighter to the wire if you like. We also considered the Infaco tying tool, as we have the F3015 pruners, but it uses bare wire only in 3 different gauges. I’m going to test it as a quick way to tie up our side nets later this month.

They seem a tad pricey, aren’t they $1300 each? They are slick however, I’ve seen a few demos.
We tried the large mouth tape staplers, they don’t seem to be tight enough for all applications. But they are dirt cheap at $50 ish.

Bill - Correct on the price. However in our case the time savings is where the value is. I will be interested to see how it holds up. As with all my tools I inspect and clean them after every use so I suspect this has a good chance to have longevity.