MILDURA’S Carmin Di Mase says his new internationally patented approach to propagating horticultural crops can save critical time and money for growers in Sunraysia and across the world.
Mr Di Mase, a Mildura-based inventor who holds a Bachelor of Agricultural Science, has harnessed his passion for the agricultural industry to develop and patent a new way of grafting vines, citrus trees and other horticultural crops.
He said he recognised a problem in the industry several years ago and found his own way to solve it.
“I became aware of this problem, whereby citrus trees’ longevity was affected by what we call a psychical and chemical incompatibility between the bud union and the root stock and what actually happens is the variety, say imperial mandarin, it eventually dies, and the root stock stays alive,” he said.
This meant growers using incompatible root stocks had to replace their trees within 15 years, which he said was costing growers a lot of money.
“If a vine or a citrus tree dies, it means that to establish a new vineyard from scratch again because the vines, citrus or almond trees died, it is a significant investment,” he said.
“You have to start again, so 15 years down the track you have no income.”
Mr Di Mase said the existing two-step technique to get around this problem allowed for an interstock, which was directly compatible with the rootstock, to be budded, but took 18 months for the grower to receive the tree, extending the time the grower and the bank would have to wait for a return.
Mr Di Mase’s method, titled Rocco’s Grafting Technique, after his late brother, is a one-step process that allows for earlier returns through a process where the desired scion and interstock variety are chip-budded onto the desired rootstock within seconds of one another.
He said the two-minute process, which saw the growers receive the trees within a normal timeframe, had several environmental advantages as less water was required in the nursery, it enabled growers to respond to changing markets and recover from natural events faster.
“(Rocco’s Grafting Technique) increases the longevity of the tree and therefore increases the economic productive life from a grower’s point of view,” he said.
“So they are continually getting a return on their investment instead of getting this hiccup every 15 years or something.”
Mr Di Mase said the success of the bud unions was easy to track from an early stage due to the two chip buds being on the outside of the tree.
While currently based between Mildura and Melbourne, Mr Di Mase said his patented method could be utilised in any growing location.
He stated backyard growers would also be able to use it to grow two different varieties of fruit on the same tree.
Mr Di Mase said there was currently a bit of interest in the process, and he hoped a nursery or individual would take on the approach, as he is not in position to become a nurseryman himself.
He said he hoped people would begin to use the technique and then eventually he would like to sell the patent.
