ISHS Acta Horticulturae 155: VIII Symposium on Horticultural Economics
NEW PLANTING SYSTEM AND AN ADOPTED MECHANIZATION FOR APPLE ORCHARDS |
| Author: | Ing. P. van Lookeren Campagne |
| Abstract:
The last 40 years all over the world, but especially in the Netherlands the planting systems of orchards with topfruit have been changing from very extensive to, nowadays, extremely intensive. In 1945 one hectare was planted with approximately 100 trees and today the modern planting systems have 3 000 – 4 000 trees, planted in all kinds of variations in the division of the trees over the surface. About 10 years ago a Dutch fruitgrower started with the so-called full-field system, which meant that he spread the trees evenly over the surface, without any specific transport facility. All the space was supposed to be used for growing apples and he introduced the straddle tractor for the disease- and weed-control and also for mowing of the grass. The only reason why he choose for this very intensive planting system, where the trees are planted at 2 x 1 m apart, was that he expected an increase in yield especially during the first few production years. One problem this grower had not solved, he wanted to pick the fruit in bulkbins, but he did not know how. He said that the problem of harvesting was only due in a few years and there was still time to find new methods to do the job. However, he miscalculated the speed in which such a planting system comes into production and already the second year he had to pull out some trees to make room for a tractor for transporting. Every 40 m he made transport ways across the orchard. The Dutch research institutes were confronted with the problem and all kinds of ideas were suggested and tried, but the only harvest system that worked was picking in pickingbuckets and walk with these loads up and down the rows and empty them in bulkbins. In the meantime the research stations started with planting trials and growers found variations of planting systems with many trees at a hectare planted in so-called beds of 3, 4 or 5 rows close together, separated by a path. The trees stood diagonal to the transport ways and were sprayed from the path with ordinary spraying machines and the grass was kept away with herbicides. The picking was done with picking buckets but, when pruning, the grower kept small walkways between the trees, so the pickers could walk in and out of the beds. However, the conclusion was that the light interception with these bedsystems was less, therefor the quality was less and the picking was heavy work. Also the increase in yield was not as spectacular as with the full-field system. | |
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