Light Management in Ontario Orchards on Red and Bicolour Cultivars Using Light Reflective Fabric Ground Covers

An HCO (Horticultural Crops Ontario) Funded Project for the 2006 Growing Season

Installation of Materials: Ten 350-ft rolls of 12.5-ft wide reflective “Extenday” were distributed to apple growers in Middlesex and Elgin Counties just shortly after bloom during the 2006 growing season. Growers installed the fabric mulch on red and bicolour cultivars, including Honeycrisp, Empire, Marshall Mac and Gala cultivars shortly after the bloom period. We wanted to get some feedback from commercial growers on how it handled and what, if any, benefits accrued from its use.

Summer Field Tour: Ontario growers met on August 17^th to look at field demonstration plots in the London area. Amongst those various plots looked at by the group were those that had “Extenday” mulch in use on both McIntosh and Honeycrisp plantings. See Figure 1.

Figure 1 - Field Tour Showing Extenday, 2006

Positive Findings

• Colour enhancement in lower canopy fruit
• Significantly higher volume of fruit in the first harvest
• Added photosynthetically active radiation in lower canopy
• Reduced cullage from poor colour, size and sugars
• Enhanced soil moisture from a reduction in evapotranspiration
• May provide stronger return bloom and fruit bud initiation in lower canopy (to be validated in the spring of 2007)

On the Other Hand

• Relative weight of material is heavy
• Potential mouse problems under the mulch
• Not a cost effective treatment for immature or low yielding blocks
• Material can get very dirty looking, especially in a wet year (See Attached Figure 2)
• Handling large amounts of material will have to be done mechanically – with specialized equipment
• Costly @ 100% coverage of the orchard floor
• Extenday fabric mulch could have a tendency to creep as the tractor moves down the row
• May be better suited to a more arid environment
• May have to push the material aside when summer pruning in order to mulch the prunings
  

Figure 2 - Extenday on a block of Marshall Mac, 2006

Plans for 2007

I will be following up with the producers that had the material in 2006. All of the inventory was lifted in the fall of 2006 and stored over winter. The net effects of the material on fruit bud production should be evident in the spring of 2007 where it was used in 2006. The added sunlight in the lower canopy area of the oldest blocks should have produced more fruit buds in those lower canopy positions. I will be following up to see if any of those effects occurred.

Funding for the Project:

The author would like to thank HCO for their support in funding this field study.

Co Operators:

• Gerry and Paul Crunican, Elginfield
• Rene Brooymans, Pt. Stanley
• Michael Versteegh, Denfield
• Steve Versteegh, Ilderton