Fruit size progress report – mid January 2012
January 2012 | Prepared by John Wilton | Future Orchards® Business Development Program
John Wilton reviews fruit-size trends across monitored Australian orchard blocks in mid-January 2012, drawing on OrchardNet data for Gala, Cripps Pink, Fuji, Jazz™, Granny Smith and smaller datasets for several other cultivars. The report emphasises that calendar-date comparisons can be misleading when bloom timing differs between seasons, and recommends comparing fruit size by days after full bloom (DAFB).
Royal Gala flowering in Victoria and New South Wales was about 10–12 days earlier than the previous season, and around seven days earlier in Queensland. Although fruit looked larger by calendar date, most blocks were tracking similarly to the previous year when expressed as DAFB. Crop load explained important block-to-block differences: one Royal Gala block forecast to rise from 46 to 55 t/ha maintained similar sizing, while another increasing from 28.62 to 52 t/ha began to fall behind the previous season from about 80 DAFB.
The report also identifies a temporary dip in weekly fruit-growth rate around 50–65 DAFB across several cultivars. Because this occurred across locations with different weather, Wilton suggests it may reflect a physiological stage such as the completion of cell division rather than a single weather event. The resource demonstrates why fruit-size monitoring is most useful when interpreted alongside crop load, bloom date, cultivar and block history.
