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Maximising fruit size is one of the few ways growers currently have of influencing the price they receive for their fruit. While growers need to be mindful of the desired Zespri profile, there has been only one year in the last 10 where growers have been paid less for big count size fruit.
By paying attention to your pollination set-up and general management it is possible to increase yield and size. This article looks at set-up issues.
Now is a good time to evaluate your fruit size in general and look at problem areas and plan a strategy to rectify the situation.
- Note carefully the problem areas on a plan of each block
- Often next to shelter belts
- Distant from males
- Or adjacent genetically poor males
- Or males with poor synchrony
- Take random blind fruit samples and individually weigh or calliper fruit to quantify the problem areas
- Stressed vines
- Mark in the male distribution
- Measure the distance of female flowers to male flowers
- Estimate the percentage of the canopy that is male
- Evaluate your historic size relative to fruit load to evaluate you overall size performance.
Targets
- No female flower more than 5 metres away from a male flower.
- Introduce top genetic material available (predominantly "Chieftain" top up with M 56 & M51).
- Less than 10 % male area, the better the distribution, genetics and management the less male area required, less than 5% is possible.
- Have some male flowers in outside rows.
- 9000 trays per hectare at 33 count or better.
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