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Tasmania Cherries Quality and Sustainability Focus at Serve-Ag Field Day
Fruit Growers Tasmania | Friday, 4 March 2022, 4.00pm
Cherries Tasmania owner and previous Fruit Growers Tasmania president Nic Hansen hosted a successful and highly informative tour of his operation on Friday 25th February 2022.
Significant investment in composting systems driven by a passion for soil health and sustainable production is clearly paying off for Nic and his highly skilled team. Delegates were impressed by healthy trees showing no signs of stress despite the very dry late summer conditions.
There was an incredible level of detail in the V-Trellis trial block where Cherries Tasmania compared production from existing commercial and new varieties on a wide range of rootstocks under several planting densities. Nic emphasised the trials focus on profitability and evaluating the establishment cost of plants and infrastructure and labour requirements for pruning, thinning, and harvest. Nic’s passion for creating a ‘wall of fruit’ with the V-Trellis system was infectious. He indicated this generates upwards of 65,000 lineal fruiting meters compared with 28 to 30,000 lineal fruiting meters in his KGB system plantings, which themselves were very impressive.
Formal presentations were led by Serve-Ag senior agronomist Sam Smee, who also reviewed the growing season of 2021/22. Sam provided valuable insights on optimising post-harvest cherry crop nutrition for yield and quality.
