Basf Chile organized a specialized discussion on cherry cultivation, with the participation of renowned advisors and experts in the area. The event focused on addressing the challenges and strategies for the season, taking the previous campaign as a basis and highlighting topics such as inoculum management and best practices to deal with leaf fall.
Carlos Tapia, a specialist advisor on cherry cultivation and technical director of Avium, was one of the main speakers at the event. He gave a detailed talk on the technical comments of the 2023-24 season and the main management measures to deal with leaf fall, a crucial aspect in the phenology of the crop.
On the other hand, Héctor García, plant pathologist and general manager of Diagnofruit Laboratories, addressed the challenging management of inoculum after a complex season. García explained how weather conditions during leaf fall can favor the appearance of bacteria and fungi, generating inoculums that affect the health of the crop.
“Today we are going through a critical moment in terms of crop phenology, such as cherry and in general all deciduous species, when the leaves fall, wounds form and the weather conditions cause bacteria and at the same time fungi to appear, and there are inoculants circulating. For this reason we generate control programs and today my idea is to start with a system in which the plant is prepared or rather to tell it to begin to defend itself, to then move on to control,” García commented.
The plant pathologist also added about the initiative provided by Basf Chile that: “This type of event is extremely relevant. First, to show the progress we have made, today we talk about how we look at plant pathology, how we are analyzing and at the same time to raise alerts about how the season is coming - it is early to know that - but in some way, to be in tune with the producer about the new tools we can use, which is also very important to generate sustainable orchards and to prevent them from being infected by bacteria, by fungi, which is what will ultimately shorten the life of the orchard.”
In turn, Francisco González, technical representative of Basf Chile for the seventh region, highlighted the company's active presence in the programs recommended by the advisors and also mentioned Basf's Comet product, which is well positioned in the producers' strategies.
“Well, as a company we are very present in the programs that advisors are recommending during this time, and based on that, we have a product that is quite positioned in the programs, such as Comet, and we wanted to focus a little on the strategies that producers have to use fungicides, bactericides and use other types of tools that we recommend as a company, and always relying on what Héctor does, which is very well updated, and also on everything that Carlos has done with his producers and all the analyses from last season, which he has given us today,” argued the Basf representative.
The discussion turned out to be a valuable platform for sharing knowledge, strategies and experiences between experts and producers, focusing on promoting sustainable and effective practices for cherry cultivation in Chile.
