A critical time for orchard management

6 December 2014 | Jesse Reader, AgFirst Australia | Australian Fruitgrower article

This article provides a practical early-summer orchard-management checklist at a point when fruit set is complete but many decisions still have a major influence on final yield and quality. Jesse Reader stresses that timeliness and execution separate high-performing blocks from the rest.

Key topics include soil-moisture monitoring and irrigation during rapid fruit growth, supporting and training young trees, summer pruning for light distribution and colour, hand thinning to optimise crop load, and forward planning for nursery stock. The article also covers return-bloom and vigour-control sprays, fertigation, netting, reflective mulch and fruit-size monitoring.

The article is especially useful as an operational reminder that orchard performance is the combined result of many timely tasks rather than one intervention.