Luke and Tim – LATCO Orchard

What are you doing to encourage healthy soil and trees?
• Biostart Digester and Mycorrcin through fertigation as well as seaweed.
• Within a month of moving onto the property we had pine trees cut down to provide more light to a couple of blocks as well as approximately 500 cubic metres of mulch which was spread across approximately a third of the orchard. We’ve since had another 200 cubic metres delivered which we will spread in the coming months on the terraced sections.
• Weed control around trees using non-glysophate options.
• We have put in over 700m of weed matting on terraces near the trees. This is keeping the weeds down so less weed spraying needed near the trees but in some areas has led to a ‘micro-climate’ with better flowering and fruit set as a result.
• Planting native areas to encourage diversity of insects.

Pruning, how often are you pruning and how much?
We are targeting a prune twice a year in the Autumn and Spring windows. We want to keep the trees low and have used a hedge trimming tractor to keep the heights between 3-4m, depending on the block topography. We get the AvoWorks team in to prune a quadrant of the tree and thin out. Given we are planted in a high-density tramline, it is important to allow light into the canopy and enable sprays to penetrate.

You have irrigation on your orchard, could you please explain what you have and how it is managed?
We have a RainBird system that was installed when the orchard was developed. We use a tensiometer for soil moisture readings to determine if we need to irrigate. Irrigation comes from a bore that was consented 18 months ago. Part of the consent conditions is that readings are sent to the Regional Council at ten-minute intervals so they can monitor and record usage as needed. We also have two rain gauges on the property and record rainfall daily and review vs. the same month last year and the average for that month. This is also a factor in helping us decide whether we need to irrigate. The irrigation is set up across all seven blocks with two sprinklers for each tree. We have the flexibility to focus the irrigation on a particular block or run a full cycle across the entire orchard.

Tree nutrition, do you do fertigation? What do you use and why?
Yes we use fertigation and have recently moved to mostly Valagro products – these have half the nitrogen of previous products we’d been using so helps with fruit sizing and flowering at key times and helps the trees to not have excessive flush.

What is your harvest strategy?
Given the volume of fruit our first harvest was an 80% pick in October and then a 20% pick in February but going forward we are going to strip pick early (late August) so that September and October can be focus months on pruning and flowering to ensure a successful fruit set for the following season.

Do you follow any specific technical advice/programs?
Erica Faber has been involved in the orchard since its inception, so we’ve continued using her guidance and advice in the 18 months since we purchased the property. She is well respected in the industry and her monthly orchard visits to our property give us so much information as we are orchard novices so her knowledge is invaluable.

Future goals for the orchard and any major actions coming up?
As we continue to learn and refine our pruning and harvest strategies we believe we can get the orchard producing 20 – 25 t/ha in the coming seasons. We’ve recently planted 100 Reed Trees to provide another source of income in the future (plus they’re a personal favourite!) We continue to regenerate areas of the property with native plantings and natural shelters given multiple neighbours across all sides of the orchard. We’ve planted 2,500 native plants so far.