Arrigoni, leading group in the design and production of agrotextiles for use in farming, will be exhibiting at Eima 2024, the International Agricultural and Gardening Machinery Exhibition, to be held at the Bologna Exhibition Centre from 6 to 10 November this year. The Arrigoni team will welcome visitors at stand A/17 in hall 22, where it will be displaying all the company’s high value-added protection system solutions. These will include three leading-edge products for protecting apple and pear crops: Fructus®, Agritela® and Iride Multi Pro®. Arrigoni has more than sixty years’ experience in offering fruit farmers a series of innovative solutions, with genuine, effective responses for the prevention of hail or insect pest damage or improving the product’s quality characteristics.
During the last few years fruit producers have been hit by a series of adverse events with lasting consequences at the global level. Output has suffered from recurrent waves of bad weather, changes in the phenological cycle and increases in insect and pest damage. In 2023, in particular, Italy was the European country worst affected by large hail. In the same year the country’s orchards lost more than six out of ten (-63%) of their pears, due to hail, floods, record heat and attack from alien insect pests, with a drastic effect on the entire crop (Prognosfruit 2023 data).
The reduction of the risks linked to climate change using crop protection systems has become a need that the agrotextile world aims to satisfy.
Arrigoni, in particular, offers multifunctional agrotextile protection systems that support farmers’ production operations both by providing defence and by aiding the growth and output of specific crops.
The Fructus® anti-hail covering has been developed to protect crops from the lasting damage hail may cause. Consisting of monofilament nets, the Fructus® system provides controlled, safe protection appropriate to the crop’s variety and the geographical area where it is grown. In fact, nets may offer different levels of shading: denser or dark-coloured net systems for zones with strong sunlight, or clear nets to enable more light to pass. What’s more, as well as direct mechanical protection anti-hail nets also provide additional benefits, including changes to the microclimate with a reduction of the daily average temperature and an increase in relative humidity, effective protection against birds and some insects, and a reduction of light intensity during the ripening phase, in combination with other effects on the microclimate.
Moreover, apart from hail damage, apple and pear crops may also be devastated by insects, including the dreaded Brown Marmorated Stink Bug (Halyomorpha halys), an insecticide-resistant pest that also travels particularly fast. Mounted around the sides of an orchard already covered with anti-hail net, the innovative Iride Multi Pro® insect nets provide effective protection against even this pest and are a valid alternative to pesticides.
For producers aiming for particularly high product quality, Arrigoni offers Agritela®, a mulching ground covering also available in a reflective white version designed to facilitate and improve uniform colour change as the fruit ripens. Agritela®’s secret lies in the special additives the product contains: UV-stabilised, it is able to reflect more than 70% of photosynthetically active sunlight, providing more light underneath and inside trees’ canopies. The result is better fruit colouring, especially with apple clones and varieties in which colour development is problematical and in shaded apple orchards, underneath anti-hail nets or in areas where the diurnal temperature variation is limited.
For Arrigoni, participation at Eima 2024 will be an opportunity not only to provide all its customers with support and information but also to exchange ideas with the industry’s various stakeholders and survey the latest technological innovations in the farming world.
