Business Development Group newsletter – July 2020
July 2020 | Prepared by Jack Wilson, AgFirst | Future Orchards® Business Development Group newsletter
This July 2020 Business Development Group newsletter focuses on using OrchardNet to set crop-load targets, plan pruning and thinning and improve the quality of orchard production records. Jack Wilson of AgFirst encourages growers to use winter as a planning period, entering historical information and setting quantitative targets before the next season begins.
The newsletter recommends using at least three years of historical data where possible, including yield, average fruit size and packout. Bin numbers should be recorded by management area and packhouse information should be linked back to individual blocks. With this history in place, OrchardNet can be used to test whether a proposed production target is realistic and to translate the target into fruit and bud numbers per tree.
A Turnbull Bros ‘Buckeye Gala’ example shows the value of accurate counting. The block produced a higher yield and smaller fruit in 2020; records showed that the post-thinning count had estimated 130 fruit per tree but harvest indicated about 166 fruit per tree. That difference helped explain the smaller fruit size and highlighted the need for better auditing of bud and fruit counts.
The newsletter also introduces the pruning/thinning audit report, which uses counts and colour coding to show whether blocks are heavy, light or close to target. This can influence later decisions such as whether to adjust chemical thinning. A harvest schedule planner uses production information to estimate labour requirements by ISO week, helping businesses prepare for seasonal labour demand.
Alongside production planning, the update includes irrigation monitoring and reinforces a broader principle: set a target, have a plan, measure what actually happens and adjust. For growers, the value of OrchardNet is not simply storing data but turning block history into better pruning, crop-load, labour and irrigation decisions.
