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South Australia is home to some of the oldest vines in the world, which comes with a longstanding problem.
Grape growers have faced an ongoing issue when disposing of wooden posts which support the vines to grow.
Typical pine posts are treated with arsenic, so growers are forbidden to throw away, burn or bury them.
Jack Papageorgiou has been growing grapes in the Riverland for more than forty years.
He said it was a problem every grape grower in Australia faced and it was only getting worse.
"Posts do break during harvest and in other weather conditions," he said.
"The biggest problem we have is... how are we going to dispose of all these broken posts?"
Mr Papageorgiou has to replace at least 1,000 of his posts each year.
But one South Australian company believes it has a solution for the thousands of grape growers lumped with the problem.
Conma Industries — which used to supply to the automotive industry — has developed an environmentally-friendly metal post for grape growers to use instead of traditional wooden posts.
The company, which is based at Edwardstown in Adelaide's south, has received a $328,000 grant from the State Government to assist in its transition.
Agriculture Minister Leon Bignell said it costs the wine industry around $107 million a year to replace broken wooden posts, and believes producing metal posts could solve the problem while creating jobs.
"We have people in the wine industry with great ideas," he said.
"It's terrific to see them coming together rather than going offshore."
Conma Industries is already selling to 137 vineyards locally and also overseas.
Automotive Transformation Minister Kyam Maher said the demand for metal posts continued to grow.
"The manufacturing has doubled pretty much each year for the last three years," he said.
"It is a great story about how the company is doing something different and keeping on going after the closure of Holden."
Mr Papageorgiou, who has not used metal posts in the past, is keen on trying them out.
"We need that sort of investment," he said.
"I am willing to listen and to be able to use the product and be able to do a bit of a trial on my vineyards. Bring it on."
Topics: viticulture, agricultural-crops, rural, automotive, sa, renmark-5341, adelaide-5000, tanunda-5352