What growers need to do to succeed in 2012

June 2008 | Future Orchards® Orchard Walk presentation

This Future Orchards® presentation considers the changes Australian apple and pear growers needed to make to remain commercially successful as the industry moved towards stronger international competition. The resource is framed around the Future Orchards 2012 objective of lifting orchard productivity, premium fruit recovery and business competitiveness.

The program’s original roadmap called for growers to understand intensive production systems, lower production costs per kilogram and increase the percentage of fruit meeting premium market specifications. Achieving those goals required attention to orchard design, canopy development, early yield, crop quality and the financial performance of individual blocks.

The presentation also sits within a period when growers were being encouraged to benchmark their results against more productive international industries. The message was not simply to increase total tonnes, but to grow marketable fruit efficiently and to use objective data when assessing orchard redevelopment and management changes.

Although the resource reflects the industry context of 2008, its central management principle remains relevant: successful orchard businesses need clear performance targets and must continually compare their production systems with the standards required by their markets.