Processing & marketing APDF

Innovation in winter pruning

AUSTRALIAN PREMIUM DRIED FRUITS

How quickly the pain of winter pruning comes around. Of all the tasks we must conduct to produce dried grapes, there is no doubt that winter pruning is the least enjoyable and most labour-intensive of the lot.

Encouragingly, we are seeing some good innovation in this area, with industry and independent growers looking at ways to minimise the manual labour requirement of pruning, which will bring the industry closer to a fully automated process. To be fully mechanised using the industry best practice of swing arm trellis, we need to develop machines for the four main processes of pulling out, pruning, flipping trellis and rolling on.

We are seeing some great inventions for pulling out that remove the old cane by stripping them from the wire. These implements are progressing in quality each year, so we encourage growers to ask around the growing network to see if any are suitable for their own setup. Dried Fruits Australia is doing some great work to develop a mechanical pruning system that will use an accurate cane cutter to move along the cordon to prune the vines. This is an exciting project and one that growers can watch via the Currant News sent out fortnightly. We are hopefully not far away from having a reliable prototype that can be replicated for growers to own. Flipping trellis is a difficult process to automate with the existing swing arm design. It might be that future dried grape growers use a different trellis system that doesn’t require flipping to avoid this process. The removal and replacement of the trellis pin, in conjunction with the flipping, is a difficult practice to automate with swing arm, but we encourage growers to keep looking at ways to do this. The Australian dried grape practices are the most advanced of any in the world, which is due in part to growers looking to innovate and create equipment that will increase yield and lower the costs of production. APDF love seeing new inventions and hope that in coming seasons we see a fully automated process that makes the Australian industry the envy of all others.

Chemical residues are becoming a more sensitive area each year as the world looks to tighten up on active chemicals in many of the common products we use. APDF work closely with industry to put together the spray diary each season, which has just been finalised. Our main export market is Europe, which enables the processors to set the premium price we can offer for 5 and 4 crown light fruit each season. The spray diary is heavily influenced by meeting the EU limits for allowable chemicals for dried grape products. A great development is the industry spray diary moving to online version, which will hopefully make it much easier for growers to access and use going forward. An industry chemical committee that we are represented on will meet regularly to keep the spray diary updated and supply news of any new chemicals being raised for change in future.

At present we are hearing that Mancozeb is on the EU radar for being banned, although it is still OK to use for the 2021 spray season. We encourage all growers to start taking more and more notice of changes to allowable chemicals, as this area is forever changing and has a big impact on which markets fruit can be sold in.

The electronic DFA Spray Diary (which should also have a very good phone app) should be a great tool for growers going forward. Markets are still quite healthy considering the unpredictable global market dominated by Covid-19 issues. Luckily, the Australian industry has good demand for our produced volume, so we are not experiencing any difficulties from the Asian market at this point that we are hearing from other horticulture industries in Sunraysia. As we see further growth of volume in the next two to three years at APDF, we are heavily focussed on building a wide range of markets to ensure a strong future for all the stakeholders. v

Enquiries: Grower liaison officer Larry Dichiera, larry@apdf.com.au 0488 199 221

Above: Prototype 2 of La Trobe University’s mechanised pruner in operation.