2020 Volume 37 Issue 2 Pages 21-30
The innovation of the orchard system is essential to improve the yield and quality of fruits. Now in apple production, there are various problems, such as labor shortage, the decreasing of apple production and so on. The adoption of new apple orchard systems is hoped as solutions for these problems. But these new systems often require equipment to support apple trees. And also, they often require a lot of labor for forming the shapes of trees from the first year. Therefore, in order for the systems to prevail it is important to clarify the essential inputs of materials, labor force and money which their adoption entails. The aim of this paper is, by comparing the new systems with the present ones, to clarify the features of the initial costs, costs of growing apple trees and labor inputs of the first year of the adoption. The analysis is based on the data of the examination at the experimental farm of Tsugaru Hirosaki agricultural cooperative. The results of the research are following: the tall spindle system and the tree joint training system costs three to five times larger amount of money than the present systems in order to plant young trees, install equipment to support them and to manage their growth in the first year. At the same time, the adoption of these systems requires apple growers to input more labor into growing and strengthening trees when they operate apple thinning which is the busiest period. Judging from these, the area where apple growers could adopt these systems in one year is limited. Therefore, it assumed to take a long term to innovate a whole orchard by introducing these systems.
