BRAVO! Shepparton grower chooses Valente to cover top notch apples

Shepparton apple grower Peter Radevski is embracing cutting-edge crop protection to elevate his BRAVO apples to the highest class.

The Radevski family will begin to install four hectares of the Valente trellis system in 2025 for their new Bravo apple block in Grahamvale.

“After pulling out old Cripps Pink Lady apples on open Tatura trellis and then looking at some of the other Valente structures that Chris and Alex had done in the Goulburn Valley, we decided that we had a chance to try something new,” Peter said.

“We can easily see that Valente is durable and will provide longevity. What really got us over the line was the simplicity of tightening trellis wire with the ratchet system between the columns rather than tensioning the wire under an old anchor type system”.

“The Valente system is different where the main trellis part is from end to end post providing more efficient maintenance and tree growing flexibility and due to skilled labour shortages, we needed to make a decision on a system that provided ease of use and could serve us well into the future”.

“I’m really Interested to see how we go with the Italian quality netting; both the Italian design and the apparatus that goes with that”.

“Chris has been incredibly supportive, always ready with the information we needed and guiding us through each step”.

Still, Peter took it upon himself to dig deeper, reaching out to a business in Northern Italy to learn first hand about Valente’s reputation in its place of origin.

“The Northern Italians have some very good systems. Via word of mouth we learnt that Valente are the ‘real deal’, good to work with and make a quality product. Hearing that from another local was very valuable.”

After facing setbacks from hail in recent years, the Radevski family is convinced that crop protection is essential for the future of orcharding.

“In 2023, we were hit by hail in Grahamvale just a week before harvest. Luckily, we had just finished covering 20 hectares of apples, which saved our entire Bravo and Rosy Glow crop. If we hadn’t done that, we would have lost everything. One unprotected block ended up going for juice—just from that one event”.

Peter said that during the past decade, he had witnessed rapid advancements in the family’s packing sheds, with new technologies like dynamic controlled atmosphere storage and SmartFresh making an enormous difference in the use of post-harvest chemical treatment.

He noted that old traditions are quickly becoming obsolete as the industry moves forward.

“Pretty soon, if not already, growers will be carrying an iPad, using data to monitor and care for their crops in real time,” Peter said.

“Then there are all the platforms and driverless tractors with more and more automation.”

As the future for orchards arrives faster than many could have imagined Peter marvelled at tales of what this could look like. He said it was clear that the evolving fruit industry calls for a new generation, eager to embrace these advances.

For the Radevski family and their peers, adapting means more than just keeping pace—it’s about leveraging systems like Valente to cultivate a superior crop, one that can earn premium status on coveted export markets.

With the focus squarely on quality and efficiency: Peter said in a nutshell that every decision, every investment in technology and infrastructure, is made with the aim of achieving the highest-grade apples for a profit cycle that allows continual reinvestment in the farm.