The new frontal system affecting the central part of the country has cherry producers worried; during week 46 of the year, a significant part of the orchards are in a straw-colored state/at the beginning of veraison, phenological stages from which the fruit is more susceptible to cracking due to rain.
Francisco Pizarro, a cherry producer who has 12 hectares of Lapins and Santina in the Sarmiento sector, Curicó commune, knows this well.
«I actually started with chloride and I think I'm going to keep going with that. In any case, we didn't have a major problem with the last rain because the fruit was green. Now we're already straw-colored, we're not green; and since there was a lot of wind after the rain, that prevented a lot of damage.», said Francisco Pizarro.
Regarding this new frontal system that will be present on Friday and Saturday in the central area, the owner of the San Rafael orchard assures that he is prepared to carry out the necessary actions to avoid cracks in the fruit: «I think it's going to rain late, until midnight, and if there's no wind we're going to have to use the sprayer. We were lucky last time that there was a lot of wind, so it wasn't necessary, I think it will be now. And it also caught us with the garden watered, so we hope it doesn't do as much damage.«.
Matías Bustamante from Agrícola Donar II, has about 30 hectares of cherries under macro tunnel: «It's not that we don't care about the rains, but we are much more covered than the industry, and what we have uncovered are later orchards of the Lapins variety, so we focus our efforts on covering those 10 hectares with applications of calcium chloride and applications of products based on phospholipids before the rain. Since it is a small surface, we use all the nebulizers in tandem operation, we send all the nebulizers online to dry the orchard as soon as possible», Bustamante explained.
He says that this new frontal system has them more worried than the previous ones, due to the phenological advance of the orchards.
«With more concern than before because we are a bit more worried in Lapins, but actually calm because we are prepared; the first strategy worked for us, which is the strategy that everyone uses, which is the application of 0.5% calcium chloride, turning every three hours, and in the macrotunnels there looking and mineralizing the water that falls on the legs of the tunnel», the producer concluded.
Between Friday and Saturday, 20-30 mm of precipitation is expected in the Curicó area; temperatures will subsequently rise to 22-23ºC, which will present a new challenge for cherry growers, making it essential to prevent fungal diseases.
