UK consumers always purchased large quantities of Spanish strawberries outside of the traditionally limited window for homegrown fruit picked from outdoor crops. But, thanks largely to Spanish tunnels, the traditional six-week window for outdoor UK strawberries has been lengthened to six months of the year.
By extending the window at both ends, UK strawberry growers now start to pick fruit from summer varieties like Elsanta in May and are still picking fruit from everbearer varieties, including Everest and Jubilee, well into October.
But what is good for strawberry plants is just as good, if not better, for weeds. Given the chance many broad-leaved and grass weeds respond rapidly and intensely to the warmer, wind-free and more humid conditions of the tunnel environment.
Weed control in tunnelled strawberries needs to be especially thorough so that the inter-rows right up to and touching both shoulders of the bed are completely weed free before and after the crops are covered.
With UK strawberry growers leading the way, Micron Sprayers of Bromyard in Herefordshire has custom-designed a CDA (Controlled Droplet Application) sprayer called the Flexidome for weed control in strawberries, including those under the protection of Spanish Tunnels. With its shrouded (covered) spray heads, the tractor-mounted Flexidome can spray right up to the shoulder of the raised plastic mulch covered bed, without any physical damage to the bed itself or chemical damage to strawberry plants, says Micron.
The aptly named Flexidome is a rotary atomiser sprayer equipped with low-tension, spring-loaded domes of lightweight plastic that shroud the spray heads during formation and release of droplets. Each rig has two or four central row domes and an optional leg row dome to cope with the tunnel leg row.
“The Flexidome virtually doubles work rate by reducing volume of spray liquid by up to 75 per cent of the 450-500 litres per hectare traditionally applied by a conventional hydraulic high volume sprayer. Operators are now able to cover the typical four-bed lay out in Spanish Tunnels with just two passes of the Flexidome,” a company spokesperson says.
“What’s more the covered spray heads of the Flexidome mean, when spraying outdoors, that it is not susceptible to adverse weather conditions including wind that causes spray drift and chemical damage to crops. This means more suitable spray days with the Flexidome and much more flexibility in the entire operation. Growers using the Flexidome can come in to spray much later than before with more timely and synchronised herbicide sprays for more effective weed control.”
The Flexidome is already being used by number of leading UK strawberry producers in Kent, Hampshire, Herefordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex and Scotland. Several growers have already innovated with changes in dome arrangement for weed control in raspberries, loganberries, blackcurrants and other bush and cane fruit.
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