Crop Estimation Part 2

Crop Estimates Part 2. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

Craig Hornblow is an independent consultant with AgFirst who works with tree fruit growers to get a good crop estimate and says that when doing estimates it is important to get as much detail as possible.

HORNBLOW: If we can get it down to a micro level and understand the new estimate at that point it will allow us to reduce wastage within the business because we can focus on that targeted fruit and targeted color we want to do and we can also maximize the value.

With no pun intended Hornblow says that size does matter.

HORNBLOW: We can talk about volume all the time but size is critical in our value chain in terms of what we need to target. But it’s also a critical component understanding how many bins come out of that acreage and how many bins are being supplied to the warehouse.

He says they use a graph with all their growers to help track the estimates.

HORNBLOW: If we’re down at a micro level within a sub-block we need to look at block-to-block variations so there might be variations within that block, early flowering, late flowering. Within an orchard business the harvest date might change so these curves might have a subtle difference within a farm but when we’ve got the particular blocks plot on here we can predict fruit size with a high degree of accuracy.

That’s today’s Fruit Grower Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.