Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/450509
www.goodfruit.com Good Fruit Grower FEBRUARY 1, 2015 43 The lowest quality trees sell for about $3 to $3.50 each and have only three or four branches, less than 8 inches long. Better trees have more and longer feathers and cost progressively more, about $5.75 each for trees with 10 or 11 branches higher than 24 inches above the ground. Knip boom trees, which are headed instead of being dug at the end of the fi rst year and are grown a second year in the nursery, cost more than $8 each. When royal- ties are added, a grower could pay 10 or 11 euros ($12.50 to $13.75) for a tree. To get trees of this quality, the nursery uses intensive management. Trees grow a foot apart in three-foot rows and are trickle irrigated. Nitrogen fertilizer (about 80 pounds per acre) is applied every other day through the water lines, along with iron to combat the high pH soil. The trees are sprayed weekly with insecticides, and foliar applications of manganese, magnesium, and zinc are made. The key to feathered trees is multiple treatments with the growth regulator 6-BA (6-benzyladenine, or MaxCel) starting when the trees are two feet high. Herbicides are used every two or three weeks. No mechanical weed control is used, so they use pendime- thalin (Prowl) and glyphosate. Paraquat is no longer used in Europe. Trees were still fully foliated in mid-November, so SOUTH TYROL (SUDTIROL) More to come Good Fruit Grower's 2015 Special Series on the Apples of Italy will continue in our next issue. before they are dug they are defoliated with chelated copper and sulfur sprays. More and more European growers are wanting bi-axis trees, but GRIBA does not grow them. "They are a disaster in the nursery," Mahlknecht said. Growers want the two stems to be of equal vigor. This leads to a lot of unsalable trees, which have to be corrected by removing one of the leaders to get back to a single leader tree. Growers, since they are short on land, are planting trees more and more into an established orchard infra- structure. Posts, wires, and hail nets stay in place and new trees are planted in the same row. While European soils seem to have fewer replant problems, the nurseries are looking to replant disease resistant rootstocks. Almost every tree grown in Italy is on M.9 337 rootstock. Hail storms are frequent occurrences across the Italian growing areas. "We buy hail insurance to try to help ourselves," Mahlknecht said. More service As a co-op owned by growers, GRIBA has a stake in making the growers who buy their trees successful. Besides producing apple, cherry, and pear trees of excellent quality, GRIBA works as a consultant in the planning, installation, and management of orchards, not only in Italy but internationally. GRIBA engineers work with growers in India and Russia installing orchards using their nursery stock. • PHOTOS BY RICHARD LEHNERT/GOOD FRUIT GROWER GRIBA has developed a grading and pricing system that allows the nursery to charge more for high quality trees.