INDUSTRY NEWS
Successful spray tips at 2025 R & D Forum
Horticulture spraying specialist Don Thorp presented at the ABA ' s Research and Development Forum last year to share his tips for effective spraying. After strong positive feedback, a spray day will again be held as part of the 2025 R & D Forum in October.
THE Almond Board of Australia is pleased to announce it will be running a spray day as part of the 2025 Research and Development Forum in Robinvale. Horticulture spraying specialist Don Thorp presented a spray day at the Almond Centre of Excellence in September and the feedback about the event was very positive, with the event receiving a score of 4.5 out of 5. Everyone who attended said they would recommend the spray day to others.“ Most growers and their workers are visual people, so I use lots of visual cues and that helps people understand things faster,” Mr Thorp said.“ I put tapes on the fan, just to demonstrate where the air is going in relation to the canopy.” Water sensitive paper is also placed in a section of the orchard to demonstrate what the coverage was like at different heights of the tree. Mr Thorp said getting good control of pests and diseases is important for a number of reasons.
“ If your coverage is poor you’ ll get a poor outcome and you’ ll see that in your income,” he said.“ We also want to protect our chemistry and if we’ re not getting good coverage we’ re exposing it to the potential risk of resistance.” Mr Thorp’ s key message is you can’ t manage what you don’ t measure.“ If you’ ve got some way of measuring your coverage you can make informed decisions,” he said. Mr Thorp said most growers understand what they are spraying and why but he often finds they’ ve never been taught to evaluate their spray coverage or maintain their machinery.“ There’ s lots of little things they can improve on,” he said.“ Most people don’ t know how long nozzles last and leave them in for too long.” As a rule of thumb Mr Thorp said if you are using wettable powder with ceramic nozzles they’ ll last for around 500 hours. He said sprayer clean-out is another important process that is often overlooked and should be happening once or twice a season. The spray day will be held in the afternoon on October 21 in Robinvale. At the last R & D Forum in 2023, the tour of Robinvale’ s innovative industry practices was well received and plans are underway for a similar excursion. It will be held at the same time as the spray day. Almond growers will then get to hear directly from researchers with a full day of presentations at the Robinvale Community Arts Centre on October 22. There will be plenty of opportunities for socialising, the ABA has organised an evening welcome function on October 21, a breakfast the following morning and a happy hour at the conclusion of the R & D forum on October 22. A limited number of trade displays and sponsorship packages are still available. Click here to find out more. Further details about the R & D Forum program and how to register will be made available soon.
industry. australianalmonds. com. au
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