Business Development Group Update – January 2015

January 2015 | Prepared by Ross Wilson, AgFirst | Future Orchards® Business Development Group newsletter

Ross Wilson of AgFirst reports on rapid growth in the data being collected through OrchardNet and the Pomefruit Data Project. A national grower panel had supplied actual 2013 and 2014 crops and estimates for 2015, providing the basis for an industry crop estimate.

The project originally aimed to capture at least 10% of Australia’s planted area but collected data from around 2,500 hectares, just under 20% of the estimated 12,900-hectare national planted area. That larger dataset increased confidence in regional, variety, year and tree-age benchmarking.

The newsletter uses a Batlow case study to show how growers could use OrchardNet rather than treating the database as an industry-only tool. The emphasis is on turning a robust national dataset into block-level decisions about crop monitoring and performance.