Cranberry grafting, a quick alternative for varietal change
More refined cultivation techniques, more applied science, adoption of new technologies throughout the production chain and expansion to new geographical and climatic production areas are the keynote in the main producing and exporting countries.
However, it is the varietal change that is most urgently needed to solve in order to achieve the levels of quality that consumers and markets mainly demand of fresh fruit.
The varietal replacement is not only urgent to respond to the demand for greater quality, flavor, size and condition of the fruit, which is currently essential to compete in world markets, but also seeks to achieve new varieties that allow a good development of the crops in conditions of water scarcity, precarious soils and weather instability, product of climate change that affects all regions.
It is thought that the only possible alternative for varietal change is to start and plant again, with the consequent loss of production and the high economic cost involved. However, it is currently proven that, compared to the start-up and the new plantation, there is another alternative, technically possible, economically viable and more advantageous, which consists in grafting the existing plants with the new variety. This grafting technique is very common in other tree fruit species, but it is more novel and complex in fruit shrubs such as cranberry, which is not grown in a single trunk but with several branches from the ground.
The graft, a faster alternative
Researchers Juan Carlos Rubio, Guillermo García and Marta Ciordia of Serida.org have published the study “The cranberry graft. Operations and execution times for the change of variety ”.
The advantage of this technique, and that makes it faster is that the loss of production is of a single year, that in which the graft is performed, and even, with some varieties it may be possible not to lose a single year of harvest .
The purpose of this study is to present the data obtained in the field with the plants and also to know the labor times for each of the different tasks that this technique entails. In this way make a more accurate estimate of the costs for each particular case.
The study concludes that the technique could have other applications even more interesting that in the future could change the current cultivation systems, such as planting with grafted plants from nursery and on different patterns, seeking, for example, the possibility of growing in a greater amplitude of soil types; a positive influence of the pattern on the phenology or on the quality of the fruit; or even, the possibility to realize the culture to single trunk. This last option would have the advantage of facilitating mechanical harvesting, a practice that could become customary according to the study, reducing the cost of harvest, which is the most important operation in economic terms.
Serious Study: https://blueberriesconsulting.com/el-injerto-en-arandano-operaciones-y-tiempos-de-ejecucion-para-el-cambio-de-variedad/
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