BREVIS® thinning on Kalei®, Envy™ and Rockit™

March 2021 | Presented by Stephen Tancred, Orchard Services | Future Orchards® trial update

Stephen Tancred reports on BREVIS® as a secondary thinner for three emerging apple varieties — Kalei®, Envy™ and Rockit™ — at a time when COVID-related labour shortages made reliable chemical thinning especially valuable.

The trial found that BREVIS® worked well on all three varieties. It was as effective as MaxCel® on Envy™ and Rockit™ and more effective than MaxCel® on Kalei®. Timing differed by variety: later applications performed better on Kalei® and Rockit™, while an earlier application was more effective on Envy™. No leaf burn or yellowing was observed in the trial.

At 1.1 kg/ha, the trial recorded about 25% thinning on Kalei® at 6.7 mm, 19% thinning on Envy™ at 8.9 mm and 52% thinning on Rockit™ at 9.2 mm. The associated reductions in hand-thinning labour were approximately 55, 86 and 57 hours/ha respectively.

The presentation positions BREVIS® as another useful tool in the thinning toolbox rather than a universal recipe, with variety response and application timing remaining important to final performance.