New raspberry pots with on line drippers installed
At the time of writing growers in England are recovering from the season and planning for 2012. We normally get enough rain for crops such as apples and cherries but 2011 was a very dry year.
Tree fruit growers are also planting at much higher densities (trees per acre or hectare) now – I do not hear of many new commercial apple plantings with in row tree spacings wider than 1.25m and most are 1m or less. These trees don’t have to grow much but they have to crop quickly and consistently from year to year in order to get payback within an acceptable number of years.
A dry year and a focus on early pay-back means that fertigation is much discussed right now.
For tunnel grown crops, irrigation is an ESSENTIAL.
For growers who have not previously needed to use irrigation this will be an important change and requires some learning.
For growers who have been using irrigation/fertigation on outdoor crops there may also be some important changes to make. One American pundit wrote that ‘Tunnels Change Everything’ and they do….mostly for the good…..but when it comes to fertiliser, tunnel grown plants are able to make more efficient use of key nutrients. There is less leaching of nitrogen and soil temperatures are higher. Reduced wind and UV light also promote the production of larger leaves.
Tomato growers tend to space the plants out a bit more, the same may rule apply to strawberries. However for tree crops, such as cherries, there may be other changes that can be made: More dwarfing root-stocks or perhaps even planting the trees even closer together!
Spring of 2nd year for cherries planted directly into tunnels
Why closer together? Planting close usually facilitates a more rapid year on year ‘yield build up’. Planting under tunnels provides a level of crop insurance so that the extra investment in trees is a safe one. Modern tree fruit growers know that closer planting actually makes vigour control and regular cropping easier. The trick is to manage the first months and years after planting so that the trees concentrate on fruit growing and not on timber production. Making sure that tunnel grown trees do that requires some thought and the management of irrigation should be the subject of a lot of that thought!
