New Trellis Improves Quality & Yield

If you want an improvement in ease of harvest, fruit quality & yield then switch from DOUBLE WIRE TRELLISING to SINGLE WIRE TRELLISING utilising Anchor Bands.  Greenhouse grown & hydroponic tomatoes are taking greater market share. They incorrectly claim superior quality & taste while selling at their produce at much higher prices.

DOUBLE WIRE TRELLISING uses 6 pairs of parallel wires at approximately 20 cm intervals.  The idea is for the tomato plants to be supported between these pairs of wires as the plant grows up between them.  There are several problems with this method:

1. Flowers get damaged as plant grow up between the pairs of wires.
2. The 6 pairs of wires provide 6 areas where fruit can be damaged
3. Sandwiching of the plant restricts fruit development in 6 areas.
4. There is a lack of support in windy conditions resulting in damage to flowers.

The above can result in significant loss in crop quality & yield per acre.  Tomatoes of varying quality is then graded in the pack-house & not all is graded as saleable.  How many grades of fruit do you have?  What percentage is not saleable? Of the saleable grades what percentage is graded No1, No2 or less?  There is a big difference in the price of 1st grade & 2nd grade tomatoes but they costs the same to harvest, pack & transport.

SINGLE WIRE TRELLISING uses just 5-6 wires spaced out to the height of the crop.  The 1st wire is on one side of the post & all the above wires are place on the other side.  Fixing to wire trellis is done using Anchor Band No.8 (diagonal method).  This requires extra labour to apply ties but the gains in yield & quality grade produced are significant.  Using this method growers can potentially plant less ground to achieve the same volumes of quality fruit.  This will result in reductions in:

Plastic mulch, wire used, chemical pesticides, herbicides, fertiliser, drip irrigation, posts & all other inputs.

Double Wire Trellising: Click to enlarge

Note: Damage caused to flowers, restriction to fruit development, effect of flower damage on fruit shape & wire rub.

SINGLE WIRE TRELLISING: Click to enlarge

Note: No damaged flowers, unrestricted growth, unmarked clean fruit, fruit & bunch size.  Quality fruit that's easy to harvest.

Click to enlarge.

METHOD OF FIXING 1" (25 mm) STAKE TO WIRE TRELLIS

Key Benefits

Packaging

The main sizes use in Staked field tomatoes are: 

No.12 (100 mm x 6 mm x 2 mm) No. 10 (80 mm x 3 mm x 1.5 mm) & No. 9 (70 mm x 3 mm x 1.5 mm)

(New) Single Wire Trellising : No.8 (40mm x 1.7mm x 3 mm)

WARNING

For this crop a short life-span ties is all that is required (4-6 months).  All Anchor Bands are meant for once only use.  Over-stretching to maximum will shorten the ties life as will the repeated use of EC chemical sprays & should be avoided if possible.  Application of new ties might be needed if insect pressure requires frequent use of EC formulations.

Medium life ties have a slower breakdown rate 12 + months but are not guaranteed to stand up to repeated solvent based sprays over short time periods.

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Last modified: 03/26/08