Potted cherry trees grown in Pergola under greenhouse in Hungary

If you are in love with cherries and grow them, you probably think a lot of the next thing to spend your money on. New orchards, license fees for very early or late varieties, frost protection technologies and cover systems.

In Hungary there is a unique cherry orchard, where the owner had the idea to make a dream come true after such thoughts, and he created a sweet cherry orchard, where trees grow in pots, under a retractable roof greenhouse, with a high level of technology in climate and irrigation control and lost but not least we also apply an „unorthodox” training system.

For Cherry Times spoke Peter Kelemen.

"The idea of growing cherries in pots was seen by the grower during a visit in 2015 to the test orchard of my family, where my Father and I (in addition to testing 80 varieties, and different rootstocks and training systems) where growing cherry trees on Gisela rootstocks in pots since 2012".

"The inspiration for my farther Laszlo Kelemen to plant cherries in pots was coming from reads on New Zealand growers portable cherry trees, that allow cold accumulation in mountains and early harvest in sea level warm locations".

"During the same visit the grower was shown the idea of the Rolls Royce of cherry orchard covers the automatic retractable roof greenhouse. All was shown for fun, but the next day the grower explained that this is the only way he will grow cherries, and he made it true".

Greenhouse was built in 2019 and micrografted cherry trees were planted in 2020. The goal is an early harvest that is happeninig between 10 of May to 20 of May according to the last 2 years of experience. Trees of Nimba on Gisela5 and Sweet Early G5 (pollinator) are planted in the 1 hectare surface, with a density of 3360 trees/ha.

It became clear after 2 years of work that the hydroponic method results in so strong growing habits even on Gisela5 that the original idea of training trees as a spindle is at risk. By accident during a variety demonstration in the Netherlands I meet a consultant on cherries. After a first discussion our team decided to change the tree training system the so called "Pergola" vesion of the SRP (systema renovacion permanente) developed by him. It meant to break all the leaders in the spring of 2022.

"Trees are trained like a flat table grape vineyard. Selected 1 year old branches are continuously broken and placed on a net of wires at a height of 1,9 meters. Harvest is happening from below the branches. After one year of production the branches are removed and replaced by new 2-year-old shoots".

"This allow that growing is continuously happening ont he best quality productive wood. For the project involving this know-how was a gamechanger and it allows us to turn the fast-growing cherry trees into a productive beast".

"The water and nutrient demand is meet by an automatic irrigation system, that is set by information provided by a digital plant scale and pot monitoring system. Climate management is allowed by a meteorological station controlled greenhouse, on which depending on the weather the roof and all side walls can be automatically opened and close based on sunlight, wind, temperature, and rain events too".

"Although the project is a commercial one it is like driving a F1 car for the very first time. Many things are happening to us for the 1st time, so many times it is a learning by experience process, which comes at cost. The goal is to reach a production of 20 tons/hectare in the early part of the European season, where there is still a premium price for premium fruit".

Immagini: Peter Kelemen

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