Discussions On Precision Orchard Management
April 4, 2013 
Editor’s Note: Jon Clements is a tree fruit Extension educator at the University of Massachusetts and a member of American/Western Fruit Grower’s editorial advisory board.
What do you get when you combine a lakefront retreat in Geneva, NY, with 200 apple growers from throughout the major apple production regions of the Northeast in late winter, 2013? The Eastern Apple Precision Orchard Management (POM) Summit, that’s what! And all who attended exited with an appreciation not only for the commitment in time and management skill it will take to implement POM, but also how necessary it will be to do so to remain competitive in the national apple industry of the present and future.
Convened by Dr. Terence Robinson of Cornell University’s New York State Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva, the POM Summit, held March 14-15. was attended by more than 200 invitees from New York, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, Massachusetts, Vermont, and Ontario. (Sorry if I missed someone!) Robinson conceived the idea from his research and world travels and realized we now have the tools to: 1) very effectively manage our apple crops in a precise fashion that maximizes income from each orchard block, and 2) plan future orchards to take advantage of POM strategies to increase profitability. Robinson affirmed it will be necessary to adopt POM to stay competitive, but acknowledged it will take significant commitment in time and learning by growers and managers to fully implement.
The POM summit was mostly taught by Cornell faculty and staff with horticultural, nutrient, economic, pest management, and fruit quality expertise. Several industry guest speakers addressed harvest and storage innovations. Sessions were grouped into specific POM practices: Precision Crop Load Management; Precision Nutrient, Water, and Weed Management; Efficient Tree Systems for Yield, Fruit Quality, Pruning, Thinning, and Harvest (aka “Orchard Design”); Controlling Risk including Hail, Frost, Sunburn, and Deer; Precision Spraying and Pest Management; and Precision Harvest Management. Economics was generally woven into discussion on all of the above.
A good example of POM is Precision Crop Load Management whereby three practices — pruning, chemical thinning, and hand thinning — are used to manage crop load to a level that provides the highest annual profitability to an orchard block. To start, Precision Pruning uses bud counts to prune to the target number of buds that will leave just an excess (approximately 1.5 to 2 times) of buds to produce the desired final crop load. Then, Precision Thinning uses Cornell’s “Malusim” carbohydrate model to predict the efficacy of chemical thinning sprays based on timing and weather, allowing growers to more accurately adjust rates and/or timing to achieve the desired crop load. (Which they now know because they had to go through the exercise of determining optimum profitable crop load to implement Precision Pruning!) Finally, Precision Hand Thinning is used as the final step where necessary to achieve the optimum, most profitable, final crop load.
Similarly for all other sessions, POM practices were documented and outlined. Ample time was left for questions and answers from the audience, who were presumably overwhelmed when presented with the amount of information, and the assimilation necessary on their part to effectively deploy POM in their orchards. But these growers represented the best of the Eastern apple industry and will no doubt go home and over time implement POM, thereby assuring they continue to be the most competitive, profitable, and sustainable apple growers they can be!
Keep Up On Twitter
Jon Clements not only wrote this story following the Precision Orchard Management Summit, he provided “tweets” directly from the event. Follow Clements on Twitter @jmcextman.
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