Pruning your crop can be a bit of a pain in the butt. Hundreds of man hours are spent every year pruning the vines of New Zealand’s vineyards, but some Kiwi viticulturists might be tempted to bring in a very different form of personnel for future vintages, in the form of a vine pruning robot.

The Robocop of the wine world, or Robo-chop as I like to call it, uses a sophisticated 3D camera to judge distance from the vine as it moves between the rows at walking speed. It can even see in the dark, allowing it to work through the night. The technology is being developed in Christchurch and supposedly has the potential to save the industry NZ$20 million per annum.

Pruning is a pretty essential part of the viticultural process. It’s not just a theory, but a proven technique. The pruning of branches, roots and buds will help keep a plant healthy, increasing and/or improving the yield of fruit. In the case of the vine, the health and quality of the grapes are improved with proper pruning, and it is of course labour intensive, which is part of the reason better quality wines are more expensive.

The bulk of this work in New Zealand, particularly for the larger wine companies, is carried out by foreign labour, drafted in when required for a short period of time. With the best part of NZ$20 million per annum to be saved, it is these jobs that may be affected most in the future.

If the robot is successful, in the sense that it proves cost-effective and does as good a job as human labour, it might just catch on around the world, reducing jobs in the industry worldwide and making some already very wealthy MDs of lucrative wine brands even more wealthy. When you look at it in that light, it’s perhaps not all that good.

At least if you’re a robot builder, you’ll have a job for life. Unless, robots start building robots. But that’s just silly, right…?