Good Fruit Grower

May 1

Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/123862

Contents of this Issue

Navigation

Page 26 of 47

American fruit growers are landrich by Italian standards, Dorigoni says. In Italy, orchard land has been in use for centuries and is continually renewed to obtain higher yields while relying on the family for labor. photos by melissa hansen Windows are installed in the fruiting wall by cutting some limbs off closer to the trunk, resulting in alternating levels of shorter branches and longer branches. "It turned out that both techniques had powerful impact and could be used to make an ordinary orchard suitable to further mechanization," he said. "In this respect, mechanical pruning is much more than just a time-saving technique: it paves the way to further benefits in a cause-effect development." The window-pruning machine was an evolution of the traditional mechanical pruning done mostly to speed up follow-up hand pruning in winter. The hedger-created fruiting wall is very amenable to the use of platforms and to mechanical blossom thinning. Dorigoni uses the Darwin string thinner on apples. In Europe, the movement is away from chemicals to more environmentally benign methods. Mechanical thinning might be critical since the Europeans can no longer use the chemical thinner carbaryl. The narrow fruiting wall is also more suited to mechanical weed control. Mechanical pruning eliminates chemicals for controlling shoot elongation, while promoting flower bud formation and improving fruit size and color. "The first trials with window pruning without hand correction look good both in terms of crop and vegetation in the following year," he said, adding that the idea is to use window pruning as an aid to, not a full replacement of, hand pruning. "I personally think that U.S. fruit industry somehow suffers from what I call the 'paradox of cheap land,'" he said. "I mean, it is great to have a lot of territory available. But it does not help making rational use of it, while in contrast in South Tyrol, where land is very expensive, growers are forced to use it more efficiently without even realizing it." Rootstocks Dorigoni and Cornell's Dr. Terence Robinson have been watching each other's work in recent years. Robinson is looking closely at fruiting walls created by mechanical pruning, and Dorigoni is looking at Cornell's rootstocks. "Terence and his group launched very interesting rootstocks, which is really something we lack in Europe," Dorigoni said. "These stocks have high potential to my knowledge for forming traditional spindle as well as multistem trees." • GOOD FRUIT GROWER May 1, 2013 27

Articles in this issue

Archives of this issue

view archives of Good Fruit Grower - May 1