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Prune Best Fruit Blocks First!
Henry Schneider
FruitCheque Officer
DPI, Cobram
Before pruning the next fruit tree, orchardists should make sure they are working in the most productive blocks on their orchards – just in case the seasonal predictions of a dry season do eventuate.
It might be time to set aside a major planning day with all the key people involved in the business and determine where the most important effort and money is directed in the next few weeks heading into spring.
There is no point working hard doing the common routines in the orchard and finding later in the winter or early spring that the available water is so limited that it would be impossible to get all your varieties through to harvest. It’s better not to spend the money on pruning if you will not be able to harvest a crop. | |
If not already mapped out, ensure all work done and money spent is on the most ‘lucrative prospects’ for your business in the coming season! Work on the ‘best blocks’ first.
If rainfall conditions change during July and August, there is still time to do all the pruning. But at this stage it’s the priority in which pruning and weed control are done.
Priorities for winter and spring:
- Prune the highest returning blocks with the best bud wood first!
- If the winter is dry again this year, decide before pruning is finished, if all trees will be productive enough to spend money on pruning them at all this season. If water is very short in the worst case scenario, save the money on pruning less profitable blocks and sacrifice those blocks to buy extra water for your more profitable blocks.
- Target all weeds in the orchard now to conserve any rainfall in the soil for early root growth in late winter.
- Delay replanting new trees if a decision needs to be made to conserve irrigation resources. They can be planted into your own nursery rows on drip tape. If planting out in the orchard is the only option, drippers may be an alternative to micro-jets or sprinklers for one or two seasons.
The very difficult decisions of which fruit blocks to take through to harvest can be made as the seasonal rainfall pattern unfolds over the next 2 months through to the start of the irrigation season.
It will then be clearer what winter rainfall has occurred and will give some idea of irrigation inflows into the Murray and Goulburn storage systems.
This will help make decisions on which blocks to continue to prune, or which blocks to pull out as more up-to-date information on irrigation allocations becomes available later in winter and early spring. The aim is to get the most productive trees through to commercial fruit harvest next summer.
The important message is to ‘Prune Your Best Blocks First’.
More drought management strategies for your orchard can be found on www.dpi.vic.gov.au/fruitcheque
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