Short-term planning and orchard monitoring
June 2010 | Prepared and presented by Steve Spark, AgFirst | Future Orchards® Orchard Walk notes and presentation
Short-term planning gives orchard businesses a practical way to check whether day-to-day production and financial performance are keeping them on course towards their longer-term objectives. In this Future Orchards® resource, Steve Spark of AgFirst focuses on the monitoring tools growers can use throughout the season to track production, costs and income, and to make adjustments before problems become difficult or expensive to correct.
Production monitoring is a major focus of the resource. Steve stresses that higher production is only valuable when it is the right variety, size and quality, and when crop targets do not compromise fruit quality or encourage biennial bearing. He discusses how improved tree volume, irrigation, nutrition and pruning can support stronger production, with well-managed blocks capable of targeting around 50–60 tonnes per hectare of quality fruit. Once a yield target is established, growers can translate it into fruit numbers per tree and monitor progress through the season.
Bud counting is presented as an important starting point for in-orchard monitoring. Winter bud numbers can be compared with the desired crop load to assess whether production targets are realistic and to guide pruning and thinning decisions. Steve recommends recording bud counts by block and tree, checking that pruning crews are actually leaving the intended number and quality of buds, and retaining records in notebooks, spreadsheets or orchard monitoring systems. Tree tags can also be used to keep bud and post-thinning fruit counts visible in the orchard.
The resource then follows crop monitoring through chemical thinning, fruitlet counts and fruit size. Knowing winter bud numbers and target fruit numbers helps improve thinning decisions, including the timing of products such as ATS. Steve describes monitored crop-load trials where trees were thinned to specific tonnage targets rather than simply repeating historical thinning practices. Fruit size can then be tracked weekly or fortnightly using tagged fruit and callipers, allowing growers to respond through thinning, nutrition, irrigation or other management practices where fruit is developing above or below the desired market size.
Monitoring continues through hand thinning, harvest and packing. Steve encourages growers to check that thinning crews leave the targeted number of quality fruit and that pickers maintain fruit quality at harvest. Even a relatively small increase in packout can materially affect unit costs by spreading production and post-harvest expenses over more saleable cartons. Packhouse performance should also be monitored rather than assumed.
Production costs are another important short-term measure. The notes caution against concentrating on cost reduction at the expense of yield, because higher production can reduce costs on a per-kilogram basis even when expenditure per hectare is higher. A grower case study compares two businesses with very different wage, packing, chemical and production costs and shows how the higher-yielding orchard can achieve competitive unit costs by spreading expenditure across substantially more fruit. Labour records for pruning, thinning and harvesting can then be used to identify where efficiencies are possible without sacrificing yield or quality.
Finally, Steve highlights the importance of monitoring income and cash flow by variety, block and selling period. Growers are encouraged to maintain their own sales records rather than relying solely on marketers, and to combine income and cost information over several seasons so that profitable blocks and varieties can be distinguished from those requiring redevelopment or removal. The central message is that better information gives growers a stronger basis for timely, evidence-based orchard management decisions.
