Advanced tree training for orchard efficiency — video

August 2025 | Presented by Dr Alberto Dorigoni, Trento/Friuli, Italy | Future Orchards® video

Alberto Dorigoni presents advanced tree-training approaches aimed at creating narrow, highly visible fruiting canopies that are easier to thin, prune, spray and harvest. The systems are designed to improve labour efficiency while also making orchard operations more compatible with mechanisation and precision management.

A key theme is the use of multi-leader and Guyot-style structures to distribute vigour across several smaller leaders rather than concentrating growth in one large central axis. Narrow canopies can improve fruit exposure and uniformity, simplify bud and crop counts and allow closer row spacing where machinery access permits.

Dorigoni also links architecture with renewal pruning. Keeping fruiting units short and renewing them regularly helps maintain fruit close to the structural framework, which improves access and reduces the movement and shading associated with long branches.

The video is most useful as a systems resource: tree number, training labour, rootstock, soil fertility, cultivar vigour and machinery all need to be considered together when deciding whether an advanced multi-leader system fits a particular orchard.