Di Benedetto Family: “With Martignani we spare 80% of water per hectare in the olive tree”

Castelvetrano. Trapani. Sicily. A few steps from Selinunte, absorbed in a unique atmosphere, in the silence of silver olive trees and invaded by jasmine fragrances, it rises charcoal farmhouse, a structure synonym of costume, of passion for countryside and enhancement for simple things and long-lasting. So the owners describe this magic place, immersed in the Sicilian nature, loyal to historical and peasant memory of this land.

Carbona farmhouse is part of the agricultural society Carbona, belonging to Di Benedetto family. Indeed, it offers to its own customers many products at km 0 since it possesses 70 hectares of cultivations (olive tree, citrus grove, almond grove, vineyard and arable land). Giuseppe Di Benedetto, one of the owners of the company, explains the importance to work with culture and protect them respecting to the maximum the environment.

Carbona and Martignani

Di Benedetto family in 2019 purchased a Martignani Whirlwind 1000 nebulizer with electrostatic system to treat all their land, but specifically, for the cure of 40 hectares of olive trees (table olives Nocellara del Belice DOP e IGP). Today it works at 200 liters/hectare and a speed between 5 and 6 km/h. Before 2019 it had two conventional atomizers and he worked with a 1000liters/hectare. Today the client shows to be “very satisfied” and explains that the difference between working with conventional atomizers and with a Martignani nebulizer is “abyssal”.

In the specific, now it treats the entire company (70 hectares) with only one machine so with only one worker and a tractor, while before it needed two people, two tractors and two machines for the same soil. Furthermore, “we have diminished a 70% of chemical product use and an 80% of water. Before I used 1000 liters/hectare and now I use 1000 liters every 5 hectares (200 liters/hectare)”.

Besides, explains Di Benedetto, in the olive trees we do treatment of kaolin and before, with the conventional atomizer “the nozzles were occluded, and the filters were clogged and so beyond the inconvenient I also had to stop a few days with the treatments because I had to restore the system”.

The use of kaolin during hot days is useful to reflect solar light and lower the temperature of the plant. In this way the photosynthesis improves, it reduces evapotranspiration and consequentially water requirement of the olive trees. Furthermore, the use of kaolin helps to contain oil fly infestations. The client recognizes that “at the beginning I was unsure about the purchase, I heard talking about Martignani technology, but I didn’t believe to the performance. Today I have no doubts. We have spared time and money, like it’s used to say”. And adds that “since 2019 until today we haven’t done any manutention and the machine is perfect”. In a moment of water emergency like the one we are living in all Italian regions for us it’s fundamental guaranteeing water spares so important like in this case protecting the cultures and the environment.

We thank Di Benedetto family for the testimony.

Martignani, for a greener world.