The Viña Garcés Silva field, located in the Graneros commune, was the setting where Agralia Chile presented its new and innovative TENSE technology, a multi-chapel system for cherry trees.
Agralia is a company that develops agrotextile solutions and also structures for crop protection, with the aim of improving the quality and precocity of the crop. For this reason, it presented the results of the new TENSE at an exclusive field day.
“This is the first season of using this technology, with very positive results in terms of fruit advance, size and uniformity. We are happy to carry out these initiatives, to start with these field days to contribute with a grain of sand to everything that is development and innovation."said Patricio Saavedra, commercial manager of Agralia Chile.
Likewise, Miguel Spiniak, president of the Agralia Group, added that: “In Spain we have the experience of advancing the harvest of certain varieties of nectarines by up to 3 weeks, with this type of greenhouse and, seeing that lately in Chile there is more desire to be able to advance and achieve greater precocity in the harvest of cherries, we have decided to do a test adapting it to the spring season.”.
“Our Agricover covers for cherries are designed to cover the crop once the necessary cold hours have accumulated - last days of July or first days of August -, depending on the area, and cover them, without having to remove them until after the harvest.", said the head of Grupo Agralia.
For his part, Nir Spiniak, general manager of Agralia Chile, referred specifically to this new technology that aims to achieve a significant advance in cherry production in the country, indicating that: “The TENSE is a structure designed by Agralia, together with another Spanish company, specially adapted to cherry trees, with a height between 2.50 and 3 metres, precisely, to guarantee the quality of the fruit. What is special about the TENSE is that it is a structure adapted to the cherry tree, however, what makes the difference is the type of plastic, in this case the Agricover.”.
“These characteristics, in terms of light diffusion, are from 65%, which is a light passage of almost 96% and that is what helps to avoid the softening of the fruit, improves the color, improves the size and uniformity in ripening. In other words, although it is true that the structure is the innovation, the agronomic effect on the cherry tree is the ceiling.", Nir Spiniak added.
Finally, Rolando Villarroel, head of the Viña Garcés Silva field, who used this new technology as a test and with positive results, emphasized the use of TENSE, “We are a field that likes to innovate in agriculture and in this case with a tense from Agralia, we tested it with the objective of advancing cherry crops, and although the implementation of this technology was a little late, there were effects within what was expected, there was an advance with positive results regarding the project itself.".
