
Our strategy and commitment to the industry is for our business and our growers to have long term profitability and business sustainability.
A key driver for business sustainability is return crop; your chosen harvest strategy will impact on this.
Deciding on your harvest strategy includes the consideration of many factors. These are outlined below.
Once you have gained clarity on these factors, you are able to make an informed decision about your preferred harvest timing and marketing choice (on-consignment, Pool 1, or Pool 2).
Factors influencing harvest timing:
- What is my tree health status?
- What is the average fruit size I am seeing or predicting to have?
- What type of pruning (structural/shaping) and when do I want to do this? (Ideally major structural before flowering)
- What about my orchard’s contour relative to potential weather will impact ease of harvest/damage to soil/roots?
- What are my cashflow requirements?
- What are my average picking costs?
- What are the market insights from the sales and marketing team?
- What will the impact be on my return crop?
Case study
To assist you in determining the best harvest strategy for your orchard we have modelled a scenario below.
The grower in the below scenario has considered the below and decided to put 70% into Pool 1 and 30% into Pool 2.
- What is my tree health status? – High crop load and good bud development, overall health is looking good but some trees showing signs of stress.
- What is the average fruit size I am seeing or predicting to have? – Estimate 20-30% would be 30 count or smaller – some fruit on the smaller side so wanting to allow some of that to size for a late season pick. Will consider fruit thinning next season.
- What type of pruning (structural/shaping) and when do I want to do this? – Consistency of fruit set for the following season (21/22) is influenced by pruning decisions this season so the grower wants to target some high vigour trees for shape and some poorer performing trees will have significant restructure. Some tree’s/branch’s will be targeted to be strip picked.
- What about my orchard’s contour relative to potential weather will impact ease of harvest/damage to soil/roots? – Generally flat, so can potentially pick when soils are a little wetter.
- What are my cashflow requirements? – Off orchard income means that this factor does not impact highly.
- What are my average picking costs? – Smaller orchard therefore fixed cost (equipment drop-off etc) will be spread over a low volume. Say 10% increase with split pick which is offset by pool average premium and/or fruit size growth.
- What are the market insights from the sales and marketing team? – Indications are that there will be strong pricing in the post-Christmas Australian market.
- What will the impact be on my return crop? – Do not want trees to carry significant crop load into Christmas because of known negative impact to return crop.
The below table summarises the example grower’s key decisions factors based on their observations over the last three years about how their orchard will perform in terms of fruit drop, fruit size and pack out. For each orchard, this decision will be different, but we hope that the below table will assist you and your Just Avocados Grower Services team member in coming up with the right harvest strategy for you.