Historic Lemon Groves of the Coast: When Survival Depends on the Courage to Change

The terraced lemon growing system of the Amalfi Coast represents one of the most fascinating agricultural landscapes in the Mediterranean, but also one of the most complex and fragile from a productive and economic perspective. Extremely high operating costs, logistical constraints, increasingly evident climate change and growing plant health pressure are seriously calling into question the sustainability of this historic model.

In recent years, a number of young agricultural entrepreneurs have begun to ask an uncomfortable but unavoidable question: is it possible to preserve lemon groves without remaining trapped in the past?

Among them is Filippo Ferrara from Maiori in the province of Salerno, who has launched a radical trial involving around 400 trees spread across more than 100 small terraces. This agricultural mosaic, typical of the Coast, is made up of very small and difficult to manage plots, where the traditional pergola system had been used for decades.

The turning point came about two years ago, when citrus mal secco disease severely affected the farm, impacting up to 70 percent of the trees. At that stage, continuing as before would have meant slowly witnessing the loss of income and, ultimately, the loss of the business itself.

The response was a drastic reform pruning intervention. Trees were cut to about 30 centimeters above the graft point, heights were reduced, and the entire productive structure was rethought. The old pergola system was replaced with small free standing trees measuring about 2 to 2.5 meters in height, with a new planting layout of 2 by 4 meters instead of the traditional 4 by 4 meters.

The change concerns not only the trees, but above all daily work practices. Under the old system, pruning and canopy management required tall ladders, highly skilled labor and often hazardous working conditions. With the new model, operations become faster, safer and more repeatable, significantly reducing costs and improving agronomic control.

“The main objective is financial sustainability,” explains Ferrara. “We need lemon groves that can be managed, not just admired.”

From a technical standpoint, the project is overseen and supported by Agronomist Vito Vitelli, who has long been involved in developing modern, rational fruit growing systems that are compatible with the constraints of challenging territories such as the terraced areas of Campania and the Mediterranean coastal regions.

Approximately 18 months after the reform pruning, the trees are showing a good vegetative response, and the farm expects the first meaningful production results as early as the next flowering season. In the meantime, the experiment has attracted the interest of other local producers, eager to understand whether this approach may represent not only a technical innovation, but also a concrete opportunity for economic survival.

Because today, in the historic lemon groves of the Coast, the true tradition to be defended is not only the shape of the trees, but the very possibility of continuing to cultivate them.

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Keywords:
#lemonGrowing #AmalfiCoast #historicLemonGroves #malSeccoDisease #reformPruning #citrusFarming #modernAgriculture #economicSustainability #terracing #AgronomistVitoVitelli

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Official Editorial Note:
Original content curated by Agronomist Vito Vitelli, developed and optimized with the support of artificial intelligence tools for educational, informational and technical dissemination purposes.

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