Today we’re excited to profile another amazing New Zealand business developing solutions to improve productivity in the horticulture sector. Helping growers answer key business questions, “What’s the harvest yeild going to be this season?, How many pallets will I be able to sell? How many pickers will I need this season? When will be the perfect time to harvest the crop?”

Fruitometry helps orchard managers to better understand their Kiwifruit orchard’s performance throughout the growing season. The objective is to maximise fruit per hectare, meeting taste requirements, while minimising labour and other operational costs.

For managing orchards Fruitometry can be used for:

• Pre-harvest fruit count

• Orchard mapping / modelling scan

•  Bud density counts, thinning planning and audit

•  Flower density counts, thinning planning and audit 

•  Fruit density counts, thinning planning and audit 

•  Determining uniform maturity areas and identify differences within maturity areas 

With this information managers can optimise labour and other costs:

• Determine investment in pollination services.

• Determine labour required and direct labour to the parts of the orchards that require the most work such as pruning and thinning.

• Determine labour required for harvesting and timing of labour.

• Post pruning and thinning audits can be used to reward labour performance.