Apple Tree: High Density Plantation: Advantages of smaller trees

I discussed about Trichoderma with respect to its role in plant health management. In my previous posts I have discussed about low productivity in apple especially in our perspective. This low productivity in Himachal is because of many reasons discussed in previous posts that are to be dealt with technological back up. This requires lot of motivation of the farmers to adopt high density plantation on clonal rootstock but with this there is a great need for the technologocal backstoping. My core feeling is that what ever we are producing is not enough since if we check out the production data of our state it is hardly touching 11 T per hectare that too once or twice in the histroy of apple production but if we check out the average then it is hardly 4.5 T per hectare. Whereas countries like NewZea Land and Italy producing fruit to a tune of 40 T per hectare this makes us to review our strategies and to findout the way to increase our production. There are some farmers who are doing a very good Job in this regard they are trying to develop there own system to keep pace with the industry of apple production among these I must mention here that Mr. Vikram Singh Rawat in Karsog Valley is putting all his efforts to produce the trees on clonal rootstocks further he is putting lot of efforts in bringing the farmers under the umbrella of organic farming and high density plantation. In this series I feel that it is important to mention the name of Mr. Rajesh Thakur of Mahog, Mr. Rajender Kaushal of Chamanpur, Mr. Arun Bansal of Ruhni, Mr. Diljeet Singh Ghumman of Bakhrot, besides Mr. Dinesh Primta of Chaupal area, Mr. Neetu Dharma of Kotgarh and Rajender Chauhan of Kotkhai are the one those are working hard to make this high density apple plantation a reallity. This is a list where I know these farmers either personnaly or through my close connections. Many other farmers involved in the high density plantation this situation warrents us that we must put our steps forward to support these farmers in achieving their endeavours. That was the reason to bring out this topic ahead of disease and pest management in apple that was in planning well before persuing this blog.

In this blog I shall first cover the advantages of small trees these are as follows:

1.    Reduce pruning costs

2.    Less spray per unit fruit

3.    Better spray coverage

4.    Smaller, less expensive equipment

5.    Quicker fruiting

6.    Lower harvesting costs (no ladders)

7.    Labour prefers smaller trees

8.    Easier to mechanize

After looking on these let us see how many of farmers are getting motivation...............
In coming posts I shall be dealing with the Various rootstocks and scions that can be used in high density apple plantations