By: Carla Barbuto.
Chilean consultants gave a master class on the global cherry business. They recommended continuous monitoring and warned that “what we did last season will probably be insufficient this year.”
During Cherry Day, which took place on August 28 and 29 in Plottier (Neuquén), Chilean specialists made a real display of knowledge and experience in relation to the global cherry business. The audience followed the master classes with such attention that more than once a handful of attendees were seen taking photos of the presentation slides, taking notes and recording the talks.
Valeria Lepe Martínez, a Chilean technical advisor, began her presentation with a clarification: “The high levels of productivity in Chile have been mentioned a lot, people always talk about the dollars returned, but these dollars are the result of a reality. If we do things wrong, if I don't do things consciously and clearly, those results won't come.”
“I think this point is super important: Chilean producers know that the demands of the last five seasons have changed a lot. What worked five seasons ago doesn’t work today. Today, it only works from XL upwards.”
At this point, he added: “It is very dynamic. You have to have an idea of continuous improvement, what we did last season, probably this season will be little.”
A Formula 1
“I really like to make a comparison with Formula 1 and I think it is perfect to explain fruit growing. What we do is as a team and the fact that the driver wins is the super harvest,” said Lepe Martínez in his talk entitled “In search of nutritional balance in cherry trees.”
At this point, he added: “There is no room for error. Error is fatal, at 300km/h there is no room for any error. I invite everyone to record the numbers for their own production reality.”
"We have to integrate the things we do as consultants and that in the garden we all go together with a common vision, the plant is one, we have to have a common vision, the different experts," added the Chilean specialist.
Continuous improvement
As if it were a sort of mantra, the advisor emphasized the importance of being guided by the “logic of monitoring and continuous improvement.” “In terms of nutrition, it is important that we approach it as a nutrition program. It is not something that I do one season and repeat the next. The tree is constructive, the tree and the 365 days of the year.”
“We see it as periods that are more important than others, but the tree is continually being built. The tree stays, the fruit goes; we always have to first prioritize having the tree with the vigor we want and then demand fruit from it.”
In this context, he said that “We have been given the idea that there is no production limit, it depends on the quality of the tree (…). In Chile, the idea is to manage the plots as each productive unit, one-size-fits-all does not apply, the important thing is to design this plan to suit each orchard.”
“Each tree has its own individualities in terms of what it requires based on the rootstocks, the varieties, the productive status and growth it is showing. I invite you to build your nutritional history in nominal terms, then soil analysis, foliar analysis or fruit analysis,” he pointed out.
An invitation
“The demands are increasing, we can always raise the flag a little higher,” he assured a very attentive audience. And, to finish, he said: “I want to invite you all to analyze your situation and start improving. That is what nutrition is all about. You have to start one day, otherwise you are always paying attention and you leave it for the next year, like with diet, but you have to do it constantly.”
Attention to irrigation
Jordi Casas Teixidó, international technical advisor, focused on water use with his talk “Challenges for cherry cultivation under a climate change scenario”.
“The concentration of roots is under the tree and I have to make sure that the irrigation is as uniform as possible, so I can achieve the best potential.”, he said before an audience very attentive to his recommendations.
“I have to measure evapotranspiration, it’s not about watering evenly. They told us to water in the summer like pigs, but no. Someone talked about stressing the plants or decreasing the watering so that they enter the winter break well, yes, but I have to go according to what the evapotranspiration tells me because if I stress it at that moment, I will have more double points or lower quality fruit,” alert in his technical talk.
On the afternoon of the first day of Cherry Day, Casas Teixidó asked "How can we know what the water needs are just by looking at the trees, at the fallen leaves at midday? Yes, it could be, but damage may already be occurring."
“I’m sorry to talk so much about irrigation, but I’ll tell you something: in all the orchards where there are the most mistakes is in irrigation. Give importance to irrigation (…) For example, in Spain the resistance to humidity is because normally there is too much irrigation at the beginning and not enough in the middle. So, at both extremes they are irrigating badly and that is where there are more problems. The large community of producers had the concept that as soon as the curve fell, they had to irrigate, and no. I have to reach a level of oxygenation so that the roots grow.”
To conclude, Casas Teixidó left a sort of maxim for the audience: “We need numbers, we need information to make decisions.”
Roofing the farm
How to choose “garden covers”? The analyst said: “A joint investigation at the University of Concepción and we realized that there is a tremendous variety of plastics and to achieve different things. Some heated, but we wanted to cover the cherry all the time. Today we learned that in research we have to discover certain moments.”
“I cover the fruit during the flowering season and research in Germany says that we should be careful about keeping the plastic on until later because it causes softening. If you cover a fruit that is of good size but soft, it means a couple of dollars less per kilo. You have to cover and uncover.”
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