This Wednesday, Syngenta has officially presented the Geoxe technology, a treatment designed to be applied in the field, a few days before the harvest, which helps protect the quality of the fruit and can reduce up to 70% of the losses in apples and pears.
This new pre-harvest protection technology for topfruit makes it possible to protect the fruit from many of the major infections causing losses during its storage.
Spain produces 487,000 tonnes of apples and 2.3 million tonnes of pears, of which a high percentage is exported.
Most apples and pears produced in Spain are stored in chambers for up to 9-12 months. Storage diseases are a limiting factor for the preservation of these fruits and losses caused by a lack of good management can reach up to 50% to 60%.
Xavier Orteu, representative of the association of fruit producers of Catalonia, Afrucat, estimates that annual losses reach 18% in the case of apples and 12% in the case of pears; losses which have a direct impact on the costs and profits of the entire production chain.
Geoxe is based on the action of a naturally-occurring antifungal (Fludioxonil), which is secreted by bacteria of the genus Pseudomonas. There have been a total of 25 trials conducted in some of Spain and Portugal's main growing areas.
The results, according to Syngenta researcher Victoria San Andrés, show how, by applying this antifungal, losses are reduced by between 60 and 70%.
