The main objective of the recent field day was to introduce the Meda Chile project to cherry producers and exporters; the event was held in the municipality of Teno and was headed by Alejandro Navarro, Director of Viverosur.
«This was a field day that we organized to present the experiences we have accumulated in Chile over the last 7-8 years with the validation of the Meda varieties, which are the group of varieties that we selected in California 12-13 years ago. Unlike other genetic programs, this is a program that, in addition to selecting the characteristics of the varieties we want, size, sugar, precocity, we apply the concept of post-harvest as we have tried to spread it in our field day. All the varieties that were selected in California were post-harvested there, post-harvested with the technical teams from Chile, with the company Garcés Fruit and then, for 5 more years, we validated productions in Chile with a greater export quantity, to once again validate the post-harvest. This is the only genetic program in which post-harvest has been used as a filter in the selection.», commented Alejandro Navarro.
There are 6 to 8 varieties, all earlier than Santina, with a post-harvest period of more than 35 days, we have up to 50.
«This filter that we already have allows us to project ourselves into the future to begin to carry out commercial plantations, of which we already have 400 hectares planted in Chile. Obviously the market wants the earliest ones, but the earliest one has some characteristics that are not as good as the next one, but they are all earlier than Santina, but even so, the very early ones are an excellent variety, it is being planted, it is the one with the most hectares, it is called Meda Rex; everything is made in Chile, the genetics were done by a Californian, but all the selection and development work has been done by Viverosur, which is our company, and we have created a brand and we are also developing them in Europe, South Africa, the United States and we are going to start in Australia and New Zealand.», Navarro added.
Avium present
The field day began with the presentation of the Meda project in Chile, an activity led by Alejandro Navarro, Director of Viverosur. Later, the members of the Avium technical team, Ricardo Rojas and David González, spoke about the update and monitoring of productive factors of the Meda group varieties, Season 2023-24. The Avium company is a strategic partner of this project.
«We proposed to Carlos (Tapia) to work together to be able to have a technical dissemination, to do it more quickly, but also to validate an orchard that already had data of being successful (…) so they dedicated themselves to measuring, which is the data they presented, so in the end it was to confirm with measurements that what was there was repeatable,» explained Alejandro Navarro.
The activity also included a presentation by advisor Marcelo Correo, who explained the experience with the Meda Rex variety in the SRP trellis system; for his part, Giampaolo Dal Pane, Director of Meda International, Italy, spoke about the Meda Chile Europe project.
The event, which included samples and tastings of Medacherry varieties and a visit to the IVU variety orchards, was praised by the attendees.
