Fast and efficient, the mechanical pruners from Rinieri, whether bar or disc models, offer significant advantages in terms of comfort and costs compared with manual pruning
Pruning fruit trees is essential to maintain the optimal balance of the canopy and to stabilize vegetative and productive dynamics. In addition, a more open canopy minimizes moisture stagnation that encourages fungal diseases, while at the same time improving the effectiveness of plant protection treatments. There are two possible approaches to these practices: manual management or mechanical management.
With the manual approach, a skilled operator can work in a highly precise way using tools such as pruning shears and hand saws, carrying out cuts based on careful observation that allow very targeted pruning. This is particularly useful in young orchards or when restructuring or rejuvenation pruning must be performed on old or diseased trees.
On the other hand, manual work is slow, expensive and not very comfortable, since an electric pruning shear weighs at least one kilogram on the operator’s arm. Handling such weight requires energy that inevitably takes its toll by the end of the working day.
Moreover, pruning is carried out during the winter months, and working in the cold certainly does not help. It should also be noted that it is becoming increasingly difficult to find skilled labor, and an inexperienced pruner can do more harm than good.
Although less precise in execution, mechanical pruning allows the work to be carried out in a very short time, while the operator remains comfortably seated in the heated cab of a tractor, generating economic savings of several hundred euros per hectare. The only requirement for this to happen is that the equipment is efficient, fast and accurate in cutting. Cuts must always be clean and precise, promoting rapid healing of the wound.
Especially in intensive high-density orchards, robust and capable equipment is therefore required, particularly when trees reach heights of up to four meters, as often occurs in pome and stone fruit plantations.
In this regard, the Rinieri range offers three different series designed to meet a variety of needs: “Crf”, also available in the “Crf 2” version with double pruning unit, “Crf X” and “Ort”. The first series includes four models whose cuts are performed by single-blade bars capable of cutting branches up to four centimeters in diameter.
However, when the diameter to be cut increases to eight centimeters, the “Crf X” models come into play, equipped with disc bars with a diameter of 400 millimeters. Both series share the ability to operate up to four meters in height thanks to a hydraulic lift of 90 centimeters, hydraulic column tilt of plus or minus 15 degrees, and manual and hydraulic lateral movements of 25 and 50 centimeters respectively.
In older orchards, however, branches can reach diameters of up to 15 centimeters, which calls for the “Ort” series pruners, equipped with discs with a diameter of 60 centimeters whose high peripheral speed ensures a clean and precise cut.
Dedicated hydraulic cylinders manage multiple adjustments and lifts, allowing vertical cutting up to seven meters in height and horizontal cutting up to four meters and 40 centimeters, at speeds of up to seven kilometers per hour under optimal conditions.
The three series mentioned above can therefore perform pruning operations in orchards with maximum work quality while ensuring significant economic savings.
Title: Rinieri mechanical pruners: concrete advantages
Translation with ChatGPT
