In this episode, the AgroTroia "Success in Agriculture" team is in the Vişneli area of İzmir, in the cherry orchard of producer Brother Cihan, who has hosted AgroTroia trials for years. AgroTroia Board Member Umut Dönmez, regional dealer Brother Ceyhan, and agricultural engineer Akın take part in the shoot. Orchard owner Brother Cihan has been involved with cherries for 55 years; this 26-year-old orchard still maintains its yield. The topic is care and nutrition in cherries; those who are curious can also review the detailed cherry nutrition program.
Why Does Earliness Determine Everything in Cherries?
In cherries, even a single day can completely change the price. Produce that comes out at the start of the harvest season fetches a very high price, whereas when the crop suddenly floods the market, its value drops rapidly. Brother Cihan and the engineers emphasize that a 10-15 day earliness difference between orchards is directly reflected as profit for the producer. For this reason, the nutrition and care calendar has a single goal: to keep the tree healthy while bringing the harvest forward and raising quality.
Variety and Rootstock Selection: Renewing Without Ruining the Orchard
The region's common variety, 0900 (Napoleon), has been adversely affected by the extreme summer heat of recent years and by fruit-set problems. Brother Cihan has used the drought-tolerant SL64 rootstock for 25 years and does not give it up; however, he is also transitioning to new, self-pollinating varieties that set fruit more easily. The important thing is not to uproot the orchard completely: while the existing trees continue their yield, a gradual conversion is achieved by adding branches of the new variety onto them. This eliminates the risk of going five or six years without income. In the region, instead of buying grafted saplings, taking scions from a known tree and grafting them is also recommended for the sake of variety guarantee.
Lime Application and the Fight Against the Red Worm
One of the orchard's greatest threats is the red worm, which gets under the bark and bores around the tree, severing the nutrient-conducting bundles. Because the symptom is not visible from the outside, the tree can dry up suddenly. Before flowering, in spring and autumn, Brother Cihan applies a heavy coat of slaked lime to the trunk; he prepares a mixture thick enough to put about 750 kilos of lime into one ton of water. This dense lime clogs the air holes left by the worm and neutralizes the insect by poisoning it. When the filters of the spraying machine are removed and a number 2 nozzle is fitted to the gun, the application can be done without clogging.
Early Wake-Up and Subsoil Nutrition with Force
The turning point in the orchard is the Force application that the producer discovered by chance. The product, applied to the root via drip irrigation, created a visible difference within just 48 hours between the parcels where it was and was not applied; the orchard woke and whitened far earlier than its neighbors, and grain set moved ahead. The results have been confirmed by trials spreading to the Denizli, Isparta, Konya, and Afyon regions. In Afyon, the AgroTroia team measures the difference objectively by applying the product to only a few rows of each of 34 orchards. The fact that earliness can be achieved through fertilization without the need for banned chemical wake-up agents is the strongest aspect of this approach.
Disease Control During Flowering and Correct Nutrition
According to agricultural engineer Akın, the critical period in cherries is flowering. When the first flowers open and near the time of petal fall, control against monilia disease must be carried out twice; in the same period, attention must also be paid to thrips, which damage the flowers. No direct application is made at the very middle of flowering, but plant nutrition before and after flowering directly affects fruit set. The team increases fruit set with liquid seaweed applications containing gibberellic acid; phosphorus, boron, and zinc supplements reduce flower drop. Against scorch and spot diseases that may appear after flowering, the Copperas product is given to producers to use.
Featured AgroTroia products in this episode
- Force – a fertilizer applied to the root zone via drip to support early wake-up and grain set.
- Copperas – a product that provides protection against scorch and spot diseases after flowering.
This orchard in Vişneli, İzmir, shows that success in cherries depends not on a single application but on correct variety-rootstock choice, lime application that protects trunk health, meticulous disease control during flowering, and balanced nutrition that supports earliness. The one-on-one advisory that AgroTroia engineers provide in the field makes it easier for the producer to carry these steps into their own orchard.
Source: AgroTroia – "Success in Agriculture" program, sponsored by AgroTroia.