Bibaum (divided trunk) pears are grown at the Ferrara fruit research station in Italy Fruit growers who adopt a spindle style of tree—tall, narrow cylinder shapes—believe the resulting fruiting walls will lend themselves to mechanization and lower their labor costs, with pruning and harvesting being done by workers on mobile platforms and thinning being done by string thinners. In Italy, growers of apples, pears, and sweet cherries are experimenting with a bi-axis system to develop those fruiting walls. The name being used by one of the largest nurseries producing these trees is Bibaum—literally meaning divided trunk—describing the trees it sells. […]