They seek to mitigate climate risks and impacts on yield and quality in post-harvest fruit in blueberries
Transfer knowledge to producers and technicians, on the use and advantages of different protection technologies for blueberry orchards, which allow the producer to ensure greater performance of both packaged and fresh fruit, as well as a greater storage potential (transport), is the objective of the project launched today in Temuco before an audience of 70 people. It's about the program "Technologies for the protection of crops in blueberry orchards, to mitigate climate risks and their impact on yield and post-harvest quality of fruit destined for the fresh market", Initiative carried out by INIA Carillanca and co financed by Corfo, in addition to the support of the companies Cooprinsem, Asoex (through its Committee of the Chilean Blueberry Cranberry); Maestranza Silvestre (MASIL) and Serroplast Chile.
"This project was born to respond to a demand from the producers themselves, which commits us to the field. As a research institution, we are strongly supporting the blueberry industry at a complex moment and where climatic events have generated profitability problems for the crop. The above, considering that there are technological solutions for the producer and that thanks to this initiative will be studied by the team of the Fruit Platform, which allows a better decision making", Said Ivette Seguel, Regional Director of INIA Carillanca.
For his part, Eduardo Vicencio, Regional Director of Corfo said that the blueberry is a prioritized species for the southern area and this initiative becomes relevant for the area. "It is relevant, considering that it poses the solution to a critical problem that affects the quality and condition of the fruit, such as climatic effects, using new technologies such as the use of covers that modify the microclimate and that require the development of appropriate technological packages".
The project was born in a special context for the producers of blueberries, since this last season they have been affected with increases in temperature in November and December. This has advanced the harvest peack with problems of fruit oversupply in the market and lower prices of fresh fruit. In the same way, summer rains and hailstorms have occurred in some areas, affecting the condition of fruit and excessively increasing its percentage to process (IQF), and consequently a lower value product has been exported.
In this sense, the project aims to solve a large number of questions regarding the technical and economic feasibility of investing in structures and types of high-cost covers. Among the questions to be resolved are the increase in production, improvement of quality and condition of fruit in destination. Change in the technological package to produce under roof, and operating costs with the use of technologies.
"For the production of blueberries in southern Chile, one of the technological gaps that most limit high yields of packaged fruit (fresh) and the expression of storage potential (post-harvest) in the destination markets, are imposed by the climate. Precipitation and frost in flowering, extreme temperatures, excess solar radiation and precipitation in harvest, configure a high risk scenario, where the occurrence of one or more climatic events in the season, generate losses that can reach up to an 50% of the production", Commented Abel González, specialist of INIA Carillanca and Project Director.
In the same way, the strong pressure of the industry to pack fresh fruit, which does not comply with quality standards, due to the damages caused by climatic events, has brought not only a lower return to the producer, but a greater damage to the country image, regarding the quality of the fruit that is coming from Chile to the consumers of counter-station of the world.
In this scenario, the systems of crop protection have been tremendously successful in the world and more and more fruit entrepreneurs of other crops, have been adopting this technology as an insurance of productivity, quality and profitability of the crop in the short and medium term .
To achieve the purposes of the project, whose extension is 18 months, it has the support of important companies. The implementation of technological units, composed of three of the 3 main covered types (Macro-tunnels, Light Meshes and Shade Meshes) replicated in four regions from Bíobio to Los Lagos, is proposed as a central axis.
"This is the third technological diffusion project that we developed with INIA, with Cooprinsem being the link with private companies. For its part, INIA complements this work with the human resource and the various researchers who have at their disposal. As an associate company of this unprecedented project in Chile, which aims to evaluate blueberry protection technologies in the face of climate events, we seek to transfer knowledge to fruit producers in the south of the country, as well as inserting cutting-edge topics and innovation in their daily work. We hope that after 1 year and a half of work, the producers have concrete and serious information of these new technologies so that they make good investment decisions", Said the agronomist and head Unit Frutales of the Agricultural Department of Cooprinsem, Ramiro Poblete.
This program aims to transfer the technology to a universe of 25 properties, which together make up an area of more than 600 hectares of blueberry production, on which farmers work, garden managers, and a significant number of companies and associate professionals who are part of one of the main fruit industries in southern Chile.
Several topics were presented during the seminar, such as: advances in the design of galvanized structures for the protection of fruit orchards in southern Chile, by Héctor Silvestre, General Manager of Masil Limitada; Key aspects of post-harvest management to obtain a quality blueberry under adverse climatic conditions, by Sebastián Rivera of INIA La Platina and agroclimatic risk management in scenarios of greater frequency and magnitude of extreme climate events by the researcher Luis Morales from the University of Chile.
Finally, the book was officially presented "Cropcheck methodology for blueberry cultivation in southern Chile", Whose editor is the professional of INIA Carillanca, Abel González and who comes to be an additional contribution to the blueberries sector.
Source: diarioelheraldo
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