Mapping Your Orchard
By
The
advent of the computer age has enabled us to accomplish many wonderful things
for agriculture -- from irrigation scheduling to payroll. Even accomplishing
such complicated feats as satellite metering of precise amounts of fertilizer
to very small increments of land. Now it’s time to let the computer help with
another tedious task.
The question may arise, should I pull Block A ? It just dosn’t look good. Well,
first of all, what percentage of the trees are
healthy, what percent are dead or dying, and what’s in between? For years, you
have been keeping an eye on another block, wondering when you will pull it. In
this case, it would be good to know the rate of decline over the years; is it
slowing down or is it getting worse? These are all questions a grower needs to
know in order to make some very important decisions. We are talking about land
efficiency; the potential of each tree site to produce its optimum yield. Dead
trees, or those close to it, are obviously just taking up space and should be
replaced with productive ones. Likewise, what about those in between trees that
don’t look all that well, but certainly aren’t bad enough to pull? How many
years are they going to stick around, producing less than optimal yields? The fact
is, there are many trees within a given block that are producing substantially
less than what that space could or should be producing. Perhaps in the future,
as each tree is picked, a minicomputer will instantly calculate the amount of
fruit removed, enabling the grower to then remove those trees which are least
productive.
But until that day comes, it is very important for each grower to know the
health status of each one of his trees. How can this tremendous task be
accomplished? The answer is mapping. Each tree in the orchard needs to be rated
and assigned a number which corresponds to a particular degree of health. A rating system of 1 to 5 works quite well; 1 being healthy and 5
being dead. This particular system can certainly be modified according
to the needs and desires of the grower.
Assigning a rating of 1 or 5 is not difficult; it's either a darn good looking
tree or, it's dead. Whether a tree is rated 1 or 2 is not critical. A 4 should
not be hard to recognize, since the tree is close to death. A 3 is probably the
hardest; you might be tempted to rate a bad 3 as a 4, or a good 3 as a 2. This
is important, since the tree will either improve to a 2 or falter to a 4, which
would then need to be removed. Be advised, as you are rating your first couple
of rows, modifications will almost certainly take place.
One important and obvious reason for rating each tree is so the poorest trees
(4 and 5) can quickly be identified and removed in order to make way for more
productive trees. It is important to understand that a tree may look good at
present, but may need to be rated a 4, if, for example signs of oak root fungus
or extensive gummosis or gopher damage are seen. Conversely, if a particular
tree looks poor, it may be given a better number if you know what is
contributing to that poor condition, and you know it is temporary.
After you’ve walked many miles of orchard, you may well wonder, how has the
computer helped me with this; it hasn’t. But now you can take your ratings and
enter them into the computer. Graphics 1-4 are printouts from just such a
rating system.
One gets a clear and immediate visual representation of what the orchard looks
like. You can see exactly how many good trees you have and how many bad trees.
Now, informative decisions can be made. In addition to helping make important
decisions for the present, like getting rid of all the 4's and 5's, the charts can also be used for important future
resolutions. One, two, or even three years down the road, the trees can be
rated again, and their progress evaluated. Your fertilization program,
irrigation schedule, or any other newly implemented program can quickly be
evaluated. (Keeping in mind there may be other variables present beside your
new cultural method).
Being able to evaluate each individual tree and graphically see, in an
encapsulated picture, the varying degrees of tree health will tremendously help
a grower to more intimately know his orchard and thus prepare him to better
make those important decisions. This method will indeed allow the grower to
utilize his land as efficiently as possible.