The manager of Finca Gallinal considers that “Not enough attention has been paid to what the apple means for the cider sector”
THE CIDER.- The Exner family bought the farm, located in the parish of Serín, in 2015. Since then, they have focused their efforts on improving the efficiency of the more than 13,000 apple trees they have, investing in intensive pruning, machinery and a system of fertigation to mitigate the rotation.
How do you see this year’s harvest?
We have a harvest ahead of us that is smaller than last year’s, we calculate that around 40-50%, because we have areas that still have a lot of open trees with marked bearings and because we have replaced some 3,500 m2, in which the production it did not reach 10,000 tons per hectare, fundamentally due to the planting framework – a variable used to indicate the necessary separation between plants and between crop lines – in order to be profitable. We have changed them for the same varieties but with more intensive planting frameworks, replicating what has worked for us in other areas of the farm, with the clear intention of making them profitable. We continue with our initial idea of making continuous changes, transforming some unproductive area, planting other varieties and trusting that they will return with greater production.
