The event organized by CAPCI was attended by Argentine producers, companies that offer services or products for the cherry industry, and the participation of Avium, through its Technical Coordinator, Bruno Tapia. Smartcherry traveled to Patagonia and provided full coverage of the event.
After two years of virtual events, in 2022 Cherry Day, an event organized by the Argentine Chamber of Integrated Cherry Producers, CAPCI, returned to the face-to-face format. The event was held in Chimpay, a historic town in the Avellaneda department located in the province of Río Negro, in Argentine Patagonia.
Cherry Day 2022 consisted of two days, September 1 and 2; the first of them was held at the Kleppe packing plant and consisted of a meeting of CAPCI partners, who participated in interesting technical presentations on the Chinese market, viruses, the Chilean experience, frost control, among others.
The second day was a field day, in which more than 150 people participated, including producers, exporters, advisors, suppliers of products and inputs for cherry production, authorities, among others.
“With Cherry Day, CAPCI intends to dedicate a day, two days, to reunite the entire national cherry industry; when I talk about the industry, I am not only referring to producers and exporters, but also to all the service companies, suppliers of inputs and products that make up the Argentine cherry chain. In these meetings, not only commercial exchanges are generated, but also links, and the best thing about these relationships is to generate situations of high level of trust, and this link that goes beyond the commercial strengthens the development of cherries in Argentina.” said Aníbal Caminiti, Manager of CAPCI.
The day included three field visits, the first of which was at the Extraberries ranch: “There we were able to see the production unit of one of the company’s fields. Today we have 240 hectares in production spread across Chubut and Río Negro, and in this field we were able to see the varietal scheme with early varieties such as Royal Dawn, Santina, Lapins, new plantations because we are in a stage of reconversion and changing varieties, and we were also able to see the cover system for protection against rain and rootstocks for replacement and the canopy of the Frisco and Lapins varieties.” explained Nicolás Jiménez, Administrator of Extraberries Chimpay Business Unit.
Jiménez also referred to the relevance of the event: "Very positive, very good attendance, the producer's engine is still in force and despite all the problems we have at the macro level, we still have resources and companies that continue to contribute to the sector."
The field day also included a visit to a second farm, Emelka, where it was possible to tour the orchards and see the nursery on the premises, where plants are being prepared from Chilean rootstocks, thanks to joint work by SAG and its Argentine counterpart SENASA.
“We have 32 hectares of cherry trees in one field and 10 in another. We have traditional plantations on Santa Lucía 64 rootstock and a bit of a tendency towards future plantations. We also have nurseries, which means going for more compact forests on more restrictive trees such as Gisela 6, Gisela 12. We imported rootstocks last year from Chile and we already have grafted plants to have finished plants for the following season. So it means going for more compact forests, high density, more pedestrian forests, reducing the most important costs of pruning and harvesting.”, explained Julio Dijon, Primary Production Manager at Emelka.
The Secretary of Fruit Growing of Río Negro, Facundo Fernández, also participated in the field day. The local authority referred to cherry production in Argentina and highlighted the importance of Cherry Day for the cherry industry.
“Today, cherries are a product that, although they do not have a lot of volume in Argentina, are an emblematic product, because we have a climate with an abundance of water, dry, with many hours of light, ideal for producing cherries. Today we have a very small production but it is aimed at a premium market. (The production) is in an area in the center of the province that today has a great development around the crop and has many free hectares under irrigation that are not yet cultivated, so we think it will grow a lot. Regarding the event, we celebrate all the meetings that are technical and for exchange, here are all the production companies in the area, the suppliers of inputs, packaging, logistics, so having this type of meetings three times a year is enriching for everyone and we celebrate it and support it from the provincial government.”, the authority assured.
Avium's Technical Coordinator, Bruno Tapia, participated in both Cherry Day sessions; in the first one he spoke about the situation in Chile regarding the PNRSV, and in the second one he attended visits to the different estancias.
“It is an event in which many links are generated between producers and suppliers of the Argentine industry, with a very warm arrival, with good presentations on the first day, and today with a field day where we went to visit three different farms, with their reality; I think that their concerns are the same ones that we had many years ago, but that are valid because of the reality that they are living, which is to adapt to how the industry is evolving, for example to problems like the ones we have had to face, such as the shortage of labor, I think that is also something that will affect them at some point, and that is why they are also trying to innovate with new training systems, new varieties, new patterns, so there is also relevance in the presence of Chilean companies in this new version of Cherry Day.”", Tapia said.
Finally, the event culminated at the Ceco ranch, where topics such as irrigation, new varieties and UFO conduction systems were discussed on the ground. Upright Fruiting Offshoots, which consists of planting the tree at an angle of 45º, creating a fruit wall, which optimizes labor efficiency.
