2023-09-30 19:03:03
In the Dolomites, in Italy, apples are preserved in a rather original way: they sleep in the heart of the mountain. An old stone quarry has been transformed into a fridge, saving energy. Fruit cultivation has exploded in just a few decades in the region, which has prompted innovation.
From the top of his tractor, Ruggero Pinter only needs one glance to know which row of apple trees is ready for picking. The 75-year-old farmer dedicated his life to growing apples, revolutionizing the agricultural habits of his ancestors.
“Before, there were only meadows here, a little land for potatoes and wheat, grass for the cows. And now, it’s the valley of apples… I don’t know if we haven’t not a bit exaggerated,” he says with a smile on his face.
The landscape proves him right: the orchards stretch as far as the eye can see. In Val di Non, in Trentino (north), some 6,500 hectares are dedicated to fruit production. For 40 years, the pre-Alpine valley has been inventing intensive apple cultivation. Ruggero Pinter owns four hectares of organic cultivation.
Farmer Ruggero Pinter knows at a glance which apple can be picked. [RTS]
Between the rows of apple trees, its workers are busy harvesting. “Take only the most beautiful ones, because the others still need to take on a little color,” he asks them.
“Before, we kept them in the cellars of our farms, then the merchant arrived and asked us for, for example, ten quintals (1000 kg, editor’s note), so we had to continually transfer them from crate to crate to sort the rotten apples and the good ones. . And he paid us what he wanted. It was like that,” says the septuagenarian.
Astronomical quantities
Times have changed. Here, one and a half billion fruits are now picked by hand every fall. The 4,000 producers in the region are engaged in a real race against time, in order to preserve two million tonnes.
The Val di Non and its apple orchards. [RTS]
Apples are now stored in huge cold storage warehouses built throughout the valley.
Producer Filippo Iob, from the Del Contà cooperative, brings crates by tractor to one of these centers. “Hello, I’m producer 667 and I’m bringing Pippins from Canada,” he announces at the ticket counter.
Reinette, Fuji or even Golden: so many varieties which will be sold for a year in mass distribution. Italy is, with Poland, the largest producing country in Europe.
“It is now an industrial product,” says Filippo Iob at the wheel of his vehicle. “We must therefore reduce costs, the majority of which are linked to the harvest,” he notes.
Under the mountain
To reduce the amounts linked to energy, producers unknowingly had a natural fridge at their disposal: the Rio Maggiore mine, a quarry dug inside the Dolomites.
“Above the dolomite layer, we find rocks which have a large quantity of clay,” points out engineer Fabrizio Conforti, of the Melinda fruit consortium. “Thanks to this, these galleries are completely impervious to humidity, which is quite unique in the Alpine Arc,” he explains. “So here we have about 300 meters of rocks on our heads,” he notes again.
The idea of storing apples in the mountains was born in 2010. After several years of testing, the producers approved it, because the fruits retain all their quality, as in the orchards.
Mining engineer, Fabrizio Conforti previously dealt with the extraction of dolomite. It was he who proposed transforming these caves, which had become useless, into apple cellars.
“Perfect atmosphere”
“They are 25 meters long, 12 wide and 11 high,” he explains. “These caverns manage to preserve 2,800 large boxes,” he adds.
Currently, 40,000 tonnes of apples are preserved in the mountain, which allows a reduction of 40,000 kg of CO2 emissions.
The old dolomite quarry allows storage of boxes of apples by the thousands. [RTS]
“By lowering the oxygen level and increasing the nitrogen, we create a perfect atmosphere. This, combined with the very low temperature of the premises, allows the apples to fall asleep,” explains Fabrizio Conforti.
The apples can therefore sleep in complete peace, even if, from time to time, Fabrizio Conforti wakes them from their lethargy, making his mountain songs resonate between the walls of the vast cellars.
TV subject: Valérie Dupont
Adaptation web: Antoine Michel
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