Has there ever been a time when the apple industry has been planting new orchards on so many different growing systems? Don’t think so. The creative energy and diversity are great. It does beg a question – is there one system that’s better than the rest? Or with the right management, can any of them excel?
Agriculture Victoria have scientifically validated Green Atlas Cartographer for mapping of flowers, fruit, canopy geometry, light interception and yield estimation in apples. Lead author Alessio Scalisi (pictured) concluded that “Cartographer provided accurate predictions of several important crop parameters, which “can be beneficial both for growers and scientists to collect data for multiple crop properties at high spatial resolution and replace labour-intensive operations.”
Click HERE for a full paper
The Covid induced labour shortage looks set to cost the apple industry in the order of $100M this harvest season.
Media stories tend to give the impression to the ‘man in the street’ that the apple crop can be or soon will be picked by robots.
Check out our Semester One 2021 newsletter for Lincoln Diploma HERE
This article reflects on changing pruning and canopy management styles in apples and considers some of the drivers of change. We then discuss new scanning technology that is improving our ability to measure and act on crop and canopy variability within our orchards.
Check out our Semester Two 2020 newsletter for Lincoln Diploma HERE
Check out Fruition Hawke’s Bay Season 2019-20 Overview Newsletter HERE
The NZ apple industry is currently enjoying an exciting time of innovation and exploration in the development of growing systems. Let’s chat about what’s happening starting with setting the scene.
Agrichemicals are essential inputs in the production of virtually all horticultural crops – in both conventional and organic production systems.
Check out our Semester One 2020 newsletter for Lincoln Diploma HERE
We are constantly bombarded with news articles about the need to attract both skilled and unskilled workers into the primary sector.