What are our groves really yielding?

The following information was compiled by Bob Brendler, our Farm Advisor, Emeritus. What he did was take the 1992 Ventura County Crop Report for 1992. Not the best year since we were still affected by the 1990 Freeze. He found the total acreage - 12926 - their total yield of avocados in tons - 1.68 - to get the average yield of 1.68 tons per acre. The 30 year average for Ventura is 2.45 tons per acre. If all the groves with avocados were to achieve the 5 ton average we always talk about, we would only need 4341 acres to produce the total volume of fruit in 1992. 1992 yield was 70% less than the 30 year average, true, but it still means there are a lot of groves not producing their potential.

What he did next was create the table below. This is an exercise in evaluating the potential production increases that we might see if growers improved their practices. From the top data line, if 5% of growers achieved a 5 ton yield, they would represent only 646 acres of the total Ventura acreage. Their total yield of 3232 tons would only represent 15% of the total yield. This would mean the remaining acres would be producing a 1.5 ton average.

As the percentage of 5 ton groves increases to 30% of the total acreage, the remaining acreage has increasingly smaller average yields - 26%. In order to remain competitive as an industry, we need to have more groves in the 5 ton and higher category

If the % of acres w/ avg. yield of 5 tons =	Then the total acres of 5 ton groves=	And the total yield of 5 ton groves =	Their % of Ventura total yield =	Acres of other groves yielding more or less	Total yield from other groves	Avg. yield of other groves	% of Ventura total from other groves
5	646	3232	15	12280	18476	1.50	85
10	1293	6463	30	11633	15244	1.31	70
15	1939	9695	45	10987	12013	1.09	55
20	2585	12926	60	10341	8781	.85	40
25	3232	16158	74	9695	5550	.57	26
30	3878	19389	89	9048	2318	.26	11