TECHNICAL
Figure 1 Return flower after a 4th leaf 60 t/ha crop of Breeze™. A good return bloom after an appropriate crop load set last season
Thinning – setting up the crop for a picture-perfect harvest “Growing is easy, just don’t screw anything up,” said the late, great John Wilton. By Jack Wilson : AgFirst horticultural consultant Hand thinning is a time where we are trying to obtain a uniform crop, with a canvas that is commonly anything but uniform in tree size, vigour, or fruit set. Good luck to us.
the future and visa versa. A detailed, well-thought through hand thinning strategy leads to an easy to manage crop for this season and seasons to come.
Covid-19 is not going away in a hurry and the resulting disruptions are testing businesses, including orcharding. Orchards need to manage what they can and focus on areas that have the most significant impact.
Developing a hand-thinning plan Identifying your market requirement should be high priority when developing a hand thinning plan. The priority of a thinning programme will depend on: • Fruit size – When large fruit size is a critical market requirement (for varieties such as Queen and Envy™), high priority needs to be given to early hand thinning in order to maximise fruit size potential. • Biennial varieties – Blocks that are going into their ‘on crop’ season need to be hand thinned early. It is critical to reduce the seed load on the tree as early as possible, giving it the best chance of eliminating the biennial swing in seasons to come.
Hand thinning, whether simple or detailed, can have a positive impact on an orchard’s operation. The simple approach is often focused around reducing the labour cost to a minimum, commonly resulting in poor crop load uniformity. Where it gets detailed is where a grower is striving for excellence and aiming to achieve high-pack-out percentages – a result from being more objective in your management. Funnily enough, the simple hand thinning approach often leads to a greater level of complexity in
The ORCHARDIST : NOVEMBER 2021 51