Champion pruner of
McLaren Vale crowned
The 2014 McLaren Vale Pruning Champion was crowned last Friday. The final
proved to be a match race between the 2013 McLaren Vale winner Gurideep Singh
who works for PI Contracting and Jeremy O'Donald from J&J Vineyard who was
fresh from being awarded the Wolf Blass shield for the Winner of the Vine
Pruning Championship of South Australia. The last five McLaren Vale
competitions have been won between both of these gentlemen so each knew what
they had to do to win.
The two lined up to prune 4 panels of vines at the Willunga High School as
quickly as possible. Once completed the judges Phil Rayner and John Petrucci
assisted by Derek Cameron checked the competitors pruning and applied a 5
second penalty for each mistake made. Mistakes consist of cuts that are not
flush or similar slight issues that affect the growth of the vine. Once the
judging and timing was completed it showed Guri took in 8 minutes, an
outstandingly quick time, with only 18 penalties which pushed Jeremy O'Donald
into the runner up position.
Event organisers Derek Cameron and James Hook said, “The fact is both of
these gentlemen are amazingly talented pruners. Jeremy is the South Australian
champion and Gurideep is a staggeringly quick pruner. He can spur prune a vine
in 45 seconds which is a speed that can’t be matched!”
As part of their prize
as winner and runner up DJ’s Growers has agreed to sponsor Guri and Jeremy in
future pruning competitions around Australia.
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