Get Out There! Apple Grower of the Year Encourages Other Producers To Explore
January 3, 2023 Travel can be a challenge, but it is definitely an opportunity in our world today. Most of us have extremely busy schedules and can’t imagine taking off a significant amount of time to go to a different country and explore. Facing long hours of airline travel, different languages, and different cultures, let alone negotiating public transportation and jet lag in a foreign country, can seem insurmountable.
The value in finding that our own problems are not unique and that many in the world engaged in fruit production are also engaged in seeking solutions to the same problems cannot be overestimated.
The International Fruit Tree Association is a global educational organization that organizes educational opportunities for fruit growers worldwide. The membership is very diverse including small growers to large growers engaged in wholesale as well as direct marketing. Over the years they have sponsored trips to most every fruit-growing area in the world.
FROM BOLOGNA TO BOLZANO
Recently, with the help of Onward Travel, we traveled to Italy beginning in Bologna and finishing in Bolzano in the South Tyrol. We visited orchards, research stations, equipment shows, and robotic harvest demonstrations.
We attended EIMA in Bologna. It is world renowned for the display of Italian ingenuity and engineering, encompassing all aspects of agriculture. We visited several research orchards and growers’ blocks that demonstrated systems trials of two-leader and multi-leader training systems. These systems were on various rootstocks and varieties, from first leaf to 15th leaf-established blocks. The intensity and execution of the researchers and growers in these trials was impressive. The focus on robot-ready harvest systems is worldwide; the efficiencies developed in these systems also translates to increased human efficiencies in all operations. Many possibilities were evaluated, and many growers on the tour were taking notes in order to try these systems in their own operations.
Interpoma is an apple-centered horticultural gathering in Bolzano that rivals any of our best hort meetings in the U.S. The primary focus this year was on mechanization and the utilization of robots, particularly in harvest applications. The three-day meeting included a variety garden that showcased 60 different club-controlled varieties, including ‘Autumn Glory’, a variety I developed and is grown exclusively by my company.
Dave Gleason tastes and photographs new varieties at an apple tasting at Centro Innovazione Varietale, the private fruit breeder for the growers Salvi and Mazzoni.
Photo by David Eddy
The equipment show included everything from hand tools to mowers, mulchers, hedgers, rock crushers, and sprayers, to the latest in robotic harvesters and autonomous vehicles.
Seven different speakers from all over the world gave updates on their work in robotic harvesting development. These included everything from drones to companies focused on the hand or “end effector” and its manipulation of the fruit from the tree to the bin. Every year we see improvement in the possibilities for robotic harvesting.
So, you need to get out there and explore the possibilities. In so doing, you will expand your horizons. You might get lost, but someone will find you, and you may also find the answer to the problem you are facing.
Subscribe Today For
