What wire should I support my trees with?

Planting a new orchard or replacing an existing one involves quite a bit of choice in materials. The posts can be made of concrete or wood. There are also many different types of wooden posts. Tanalith, creosote or carmo wooden posts are just a small selection of the types of posts.

But you also have different types of wire in support wire. Steel wires from Crapal or Bezinal, for example, but there are also plastic wires available such as Deltex and Bayco.

In this blog, I would like to elaborate on the different types of support wires.

I would like to start with the most commonly used type of wire in fruit growing. Steel wire. 2 types of wire are common in Dutch fruit growing, but also in international fruit growing. These are the Crapal and the Bezinal wire.

Crapal Wire

Crapal wire gets its name from the Crapal brand. The wire is available in many different diameters. Such as the 2.0 mm, 2.2 mm and 2.5mm. These diameters are widely used in orchards.

Crapal wire is galvanised wire and consists of about 95% zinc and 5% aluminium.

As for Crapal's 2.5mm tension wire, it has a tensile strength of around 360kg. The steel wire is usually supplied in rolls of 25 kg. A roll of 2.5mm and 25kg contains around 650 length metres.

Bezinal wire

The Bezinal wire is a wire of the brand Bekaert. Bekaert is a major supplier of wires, wire products and operations. It operates in many different industries such as fruit growing, automotive and the construction industry.

Bekaert's Bezinal wires have an elongation of about 4%. For the wire 2.5mm, the breaking force is 590kg. A 25kg roll contains 650 metres. This is a standard Bezinal wire.
Bezinal also has qualitatively even stronger wires. For instance, they have a wire 2.5mm in their range that has 660kg tensile strength.

After the steel wires from Crapal and Bezinal, I want to move on to plastic wires. The Bayco and the Deltex wire. Both wires have been used for tree support for many years.

Bayco wire

The Bayco wire is a wire of PERLON – The Filament Company,

The world's largest manufacturer between synthetic monofilaments. One difference of synthetic wire and steel wire is that synthetic wire is much lighter. In addition, plastic wire tends to be better at protecting sprays, fertilisers and humic acids.

Looking at a roll of Bayco wire of 2.5mm, the weight of the roll is 11kg. And this 11kg contains about 2,000 metres. The tensile strength of Bayco is about 265kg.

Bayco is available in white and black. The white Bayco wire is widely used as horse fencing wire.

Deltex wire

The Deltex crop wire is a similar type of wire to Bayco. The Deltex wire is widely used in fruit growing as a support wire. But also widely used in greenhouses and tunnels.

The Deltex wire is mostly used in 2.2 mm, 2.6 mm and 3.0 mm. The wire is available in 2 shapes, a more oval shape and a standard round wire. The Deltex wire is available in black and transparent and UV-resistant wire.

Would you like to know more about a specific type of wire after reading these specifications? We would be happy to help you choose the right wire.

Read all about canes, bamboo and other support materials in this blog!