Controllo termico dei polloni in viticoltura

In viticulture sucker control is an open problem. Thermal sucker control seems very interesting. Among the various thermal methods that produced by open flame burners fueled with LPG is actually the most suitable. In this paper are reported the results of a limited experimentation carried out on flaming sucker control and the development of a specific machine for this application. In the trials manual suckering required an average operative time of approximately 27 h/ha (suckers devitalized 100 % as per protocol), while the flaming machine needed about 2.4 h/ha (suckers devitalized 77%). The experimentation also showed that increasing the speed up to about 4 km/h the amount of suckers devitalized did not decrease. The machine developed for the flaming sucker control has technical solutions that should allow improving the result obtained. The thermal sucker control is a very promising technique; clearly long-term trials are needed to develop application technology and equipment.