On The Road With The International Fruit Tree Association Study Tour To Italy Part 1 [Slideshow]

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One hundred and fifty fruit growers, extension workers, researchers and industry workers answered the call of International Fruit Tree Association to travel and study this month with Cornell University’s Terence Robinson in Italy.

Our goal for this trip is to study apple production in one of the most concentrated fruit growing areas of the world, the South Tyrol region of Italy. With 18,400 Hectares (1 HA = 2.47 acres) of production, South Tyrol is the largest apple production area in Italy as well as the entire European Union (EU). More than 5,000 farmers produce apples in this unique contiguous region, nestled in two long narrow valleys with mountains on both sides.

We trip-goers all met in Venice, Italy Saturday night, Nov. 15 and had a warm welcoming dinner. After decompressing from a day and half of international travel by touring the magnificent city of Venice, we departed Monday for an apple nursery tour hosted by GRIBA tree nursery in Isola della Scala (south of Vernona).

The secret to the outstanding apple production in terms of yield and quality is the starting unit, the nursery tree. In visiting one of GRIBA’s nursery fields, we all saw first hand the quality of the apple trees, almost ready to be dug for planting in 2015.

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We spent more than two hours in the nursery learning and asking questions. More on the details of GRIBA’s nursery production in the next installment from the tour.

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