Inventor’s Simple Idea Works Wonders For Wine Industry Workers

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Making wine is full of tradition and history, and behind the scenes some backbreaking work goes on.

But one Marlborough inventor has transformed one of the most labour-intensive jobs in growing grapes – bud rubbing – with a simple scrubbing brush on a stick.

Rubbing off unwanted new growth so the vines can flourish and produce a bumper crop of grapes is back-breaking work.

And this year one simple invention has made the job a lot easier.

The ‘bud brush’ was invented by Martin Thompson, who has lived amongst the vines in Marlborough for six years.

It is basically a stick with hard bristles on the bottom. In fact, his prototype was a piece of wood with a bristled doormat stuck to it.

“It wraps itself around the brush and you can use the outer edge for harder bits at the bottom, and it’s so nice and neat in there that it just grabs around the edge of the vine,” he says.

The idea came to Mr Thompson when he saw his friends having to bend down so often to do the job.

“For some reason no one has come up specific idea so I looked at it, done a prototype, made sure it worked and now it’s come to this.”

Photo by glovsky225.

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