A new way of growing apples was presented at the summer technical conference recently held at Mas Badia's IRTA. The new way consists of growing the fruits through an apple wall.
The concept of the apple wall is a new way of conducting the trees within a length of 3 metres and a width of 40 to 80 centimetres, narrower than what is used nowadays. This new apple orchards design facilitates most of the production processes, especially in harvest.
The wall allows producers to get a better quality and homogeneity in their final product, since they can work more carefully, easily and comfortably as the apples are within reach.
Another benefit of the apple wall is that it allows the mechanization of key processes, such as fruit thinning and pruning, which can be performed without the use of pesticides; thus, reducing expenses.
Thinning the trees at the time of flowering allows the fruit left on the tree to be bigger and better from the beginning. Pruning the trees on time will favour next year's crop, reducing the alternating of production that is so problematic for certain apple varieties.
In addition, the amount of pesticides used can be reduced significantly, which benefits the environment and producers.
In short, the apple wall is a new, economical, production technique that has a low impact on the environment and that allows producers to get better quality apples.
Source: IRTA
