Shine N' Ripe XL

Shine N' Ripe XL is a heavy-duty, highly-reflective crop protection film, especially for multi-year applications in groves and orchards to protect plants by suppressing the growth of weeds, limiting disease transmission by insects, and modifying the growth of plants.

Shine N' Ripe XL convincing physical mode of action, in other words non-chemical, is based on the unique ability of aluminum mirrors to reflect incident sunlight from infrared (IR) over visible light - includes photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) - to (UV) ultraviolet radiation - almost completely.

• High UV and visible solar radiation reflected from the film impairs insect’s sense of orientation to locate plants, consequently reducing feeding damage and disease transmission.
• High visible light reflection from the film increases the availability of PAR for the lower plant shaded by the plant canopy, consequently accelerating plant growth, fruit bearing and fruit production (yield).

Features:

• Heavy-duty, walkable, highly-reflective mulch for new citrus groves
• Maintains mechanical integrity outdoor guaranteed for at least 3 years
• Proprietary coating protects aluminum mirror from corrosion to maintain high reflectivity of solar UV, over PAR to IR radiation for at least 3 years
• Easy to install  in new groves with common mulch layer equipment: retrofitting  of established groves either manually or semi-mechanically
• More efficient, economically viable, environmentally friendly and safer for bees than chemical insecticides and growth accelerators

Benefits:

Experimental and commercial trials by University of Florida (Oranges) and Florida Research Center (Grapefruits) in past 5 years indicate that Shine N' Ripe XL:

• is more effective than chemical insecticides in preventing citrus greening infestation transmitted by Asian citrus psyllid insects (ACP) in the first 3 years and delays the onset of citrus greening later on
• nearly doubles growth of young citrus trees compared to non-mulched trees and
• stimulates fruit bearing 2 years earlier and produces 45% (Oranges) to 90% (Grapefruit) higher yields of same fruit size and quality than current agricultural cultivation methods
• provides a positive return already 3 years after planting, despite additional costs for film installation compared to a negative return by current agricultural cultivation methods
• provides growers with 2 extra profits compared to current five year growing cycle non-mulched on bare ground.

Recent customer results indicate that Shine N' Ripe XL stimulates also early maturity, improved fruit coloration and fruit quality in peach, blueberry, raspberry and skinless kiwi production as well as controlling other daylight active insects like citrus thrips in blueberry or Xylella transmitting spitting bugs in olives.