BreviSmart® is a web-based tool to help optimise apple thinning

Thinning is a major task that directly impacts the final quality of fresh pome fruit. Under normal conditions, fruit set exceeds the optimum crop load required to achieve the correct fruit size. Thinning is the removal of excess flowers and young fruit. For producers and advisors, thinning using a combination of techniques is so complicated, time-consuming and sometimes unpredictable that it can be described as more of an art than a practice.

For the first time in this sector, a simple tool, BreviSmart®, allows technicians and their producers to predict the outcome of thinning.

BreviSmart® is a web-based tool to help optimise apple thinning

BreviSmart® is designed to be used by advisors to help choose the optimal time for the application of a non-hormonal thinner, depending on the desired results.

– The BreviSmart® model has been developed by a group of European fruit thinning experts from the leading fruit testing stations. The model helps to predict the effectiveness of the application depending on climatic and agronomic variables.

By using BreviSmart®, pome fruit producers and their advisors can :

– better achieve optimal thinning,

– optimise their hand thinning costs

– improve the confidence of producers and advisors in their decision-making process for their thinning strategy

– leverage past experience for future strategies by documenting all thinning data in just one place.