THE pursuit of improved fruit quality will see technology impact on traditional pruning techniques in South Tyrol, the international congress at Interpoma heard last weekend.
The final day of the international trade show on the cultivation, storage and marketing of the apple, focused on the way new technologies were driving innovation in the fruit sector in Europe.
South Tyrolean Extension Service representative Josef Österreicher said the pursuit of quality would drive innovation in the way orchardists managed their trees.
However he said any innovation would be informed by traditional methods, that had served the sector well for hundreds of years.
“Another very topical issue for larger farms is when to introduce mechanisation for pruning, thinning and weed control,” he said.
“Robot harvesters are pretty advanced, there are several larger farms that are really looking forward to more efficient robots.”
South Tyrolean apple orchards still use traditional manual pruning and thinning methods but most have adopted a form of mechanised harvesting, with the use of platform machines that assist harvesters to reach the higher fruit.
Mr Österreicher took the congress through various traditional pruning techniques that were used in South Tyrol, such as the DaVor system.
The DaVor pruning system encourages farmers to create four or five leaders for each of their apple trees and avoid creating a hierarchy of leaders.
With this system, the interplant distance is shorter and the trees are encouraged to grow shorter.
“The tree, once grown, after two years is bended [sic] horizontally and the first fruit bearing branches grow,” Mr Österreicher said.
“The farmer already gets the plant with this shape [from the nursery] and does not need to wait long to close the cycle.”
Mr Österreicher said it was important each leader was treated as if it was a single spindle tree so branches should be compacted to avoid the situation where one leader branch is better than the others.
In South Tyrol, 98 per cent of its apple trees are spindle or super spindle trees, which is a variety of apple tree that can be cultivated in small spaces.
“We have for many decades now had spindle trees, this is a type of training where we have a lot of experience,” Mr Österreicher said.
He said it was important the region combined the old forms of training with new technology and concepts to create higher quality products to continue to compete in the international market.
“It’s important to have a slender tip of the tree; the tip should be slender because otherwise it will be a problematic area, the predominance of the top should be avoided,” he said.
“The top should be pruned to ensure there are fruiting branches but not useless volume.”
In addition, Mr Österreicher advocated farmers should prune the fruiting branches of an apple tree.
“Farmers have the impression that this work is harmful but in fact with this type of pruning you do a type of early thinning, to remove useless wood so you don’t need to do heavy mechanical thinning depending on the choice you make,” he said.
Caitlin Jarvis is a guest of the Italian Trade Agency for Interpoma, held in Bolzano, South Tyrol, Italy, on November 24-26.