December arrives on Sunday and there will be just three and a half weeks to Christmas Day
The sound of festive music is increasing as we visit shops in Town (some have been at it for a while now) and it always brings me back to when I was still growing apples. As we got into December and we were busy packing for Sainsburys and Tesco in my new Packhouse during the 1980's my staff played festive music continuously.
I first heard "Fairytale of New York" by the Pogue's Shane MacGowan and Kirsty McColl, released in 1987 and what an atmosphere there was then, wonderful, enhanced by fact that in those days apples were wanted, and reasonably rewarded by the retailers, it made for 'happy times'
Just lately I have been reminiscing about other happy times in the 'recent past' when my health allowed me to travel with apple/farming industry friends to events which I took for granted then, but are now beyond my capability!
Just last week the Interpoma Conference took place in Bolzano in Northern Italy, an event I used to visit Regularly.
Held over 3 days: Thursday, Friday, and Saturday in November Interpoma is a myriad of exhibitors stands and a Conference hall featuring speakers from all aspects of the 'Pomme' industry.
Of the many areas of interest, had I been at Interpoma, the 'Orchard of The Future would have been high on my list'
Below the link which takes you to each element of the technology central to creating the Orchard of The Future, where the 11 companies post their individual skill sets. The first is Cclaire
Click on The Orchard of The Future
Reminiscing again, below links to some of my visits to Verona, Bolzano and Interpoma
Moving on.....
On Thursday I joined the NIAB EMR Soft Fruit Day via ZOOM for highlights of the research to maximise yield potential
Growers and industry stakeholders were invited to join Niab's free online soft fruit day on 28th November, that will include updates on research into maximising yield potential in strawberry and raspberry crops.
In next week's English Apple Man Journal I intend to report on the progress made by scientists at NIAB on the Soft Fruit objectives.
Previous Niab work on the full yield potential of strawberry varieties Malling Champion and Malling Ace highlighted the variation in yield potential between individual plants. Work is now focused on optimising the propagation environment to produce plants of equal quality that have the same maximum yield potential. Niab is also working to optimise raspberry propagation to maximise plant uniformity.
That is all for this week
Take care
The English Apple Man