Fruiting walls with windows

May 2013 | Good Fruit Grower article featuring Dr Alberto Dorigoni | Future Orchards® resource

This Future Orchards® resource focuses on fruiting walls with windows. It brings the subject into a practical orchard-management context, with attention to measurable production, fruit-quality and business outcomes rather than treating the topic as an isolated technical exercise.

The article describes Alberto Dorigoni’s “window pruning” concept: external mechanical hedging creates the fruiting-wall face while interior cutting units open windows deeper in the canopy. The approach is designed to improve access and light while reducing follow-up hand pruning, and the narrow wall is also suited to platforms, mechanical blossom thinning and mechanical weed control.

For growers, the resource is most useful as a decision-support reference: combine the technical principles with local block data, site conditions, labour constraints and market requirements, then monitor whether the chosen strategy improves consistency and profitability over time.