Good Fruit Grower

May 1

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

Contents of this Issue

Navigation

Page 25 of 47

Optimizing Production Fruiting walls with windows I n Italy, where mechanical pruning is being used to form fruiting walls, researchers and growers are already looking at the next step beyond mechanical pruning. It is called window pruning. Dr. Alberto Dorigoni is studying this approach at the Istituto Agrario Di San Michele All'Adige in Italy's South Tyrol province. He described his work during the International Fruit Tree Association conference in Boston in February. Think of window pruning as a tool to make several openings in a fruiting wall. The outer, smooth face of the wall is formed by a sicklebar hedger positioned about two away from the tree trunk, and slanted slightly inward toward the tree, making the top of the tree thinner than the bottom. Windows are "installed" in this wall by cutting some limbs off closer to the trunk, resulting in alternating levels of shorter branches and longer branches from the bottom to the top of the tree. This creates windows that let light into the center of the trees. One company in Italy, called Fa-MA, is building the F.E.M (Fondazione E. Mach), a patented machine that makes these windows. Four cutting units, each 15 inches long, run inside the tree canopy while the by Richard Lehnert sicklebar outside does the hedging. There are seven such machines in use in Italy, working in apples, peaches, pears, and plums, Dorigoni said. Demonstration trials are in progress in other countries. "Traditional mechanical pruning shapes a fruit wall that still needs about 40 to 70 hours per hectare (16 to 28 hours per acre) of winter pruning to get rid of excessive wood inside the tree," Dorigoni said. "The windowAlberto Dorigoni pruning machine's goal is to mimic hand pruning and explains cuts made trigger a cycle of shoots. The resulting shape looks more for the windowsimilar to a hand-pruned spindle tree than to a fruit wall." pruning approach. The number of interior cutting units can range from one or two to three or four, and the distance from the trunk can vary from 4 to 20 inches. The angle of both the outside and inside cutting bars can be changed. The window-pruning machine can operate either in winter or as a postharvest pruning treatment. When the inside cutting units are removed, it becomes a traditional pruning machine. By changing the height of the windows over the years, so that what is left long one year is cut short in another, it is possible to induce a cycle of new shoots. Italian researcher studies mechanical pruning that also reaches inside the canopy. Reduce labor Dorigoni began working in the last decade on ways to reduce the amount of labor expended in orchards. Many Italian orchards are small, family-owned operations, and growers need to make intense use of limited land without using much hired labor. Some land has been in orchards for more than 600 years. Dorigoni began working on mechanization and ways to speed up thinning and pruning. "I realized that any form of mechanization or simplification was more suitable to the fruit wall system than to the long pruning system," he said. With long pruning, it is easier to balance tree vigor. Dorigoni is trying to find this balance by using both mechanical pruning and multistem (multitrunk) systems to spread vigor over more upright axes coming from the same base. 26 May 1, 2013 GOOD FRUIT GROWER

Articles in this issue

Archives of this issue

view archives of Good Fruit Grower - May 1