Concepts of Site Specific Management in Orchard Crops

1. Concepts of Site Specific Management in Orchard Crops Josh Massey BAE/SOIL 4213 April 20, 2009

2. Establishing an Orchard • Site selection • Variety selection • Water sources – dryland vs. irrigated • Equipment selection • Use of pesticides and fertilizers

3. Site Selection • Know soil type • Prefer well drained, sandy loam to sandy clay loam soils • Landscape position • Upland vs. valley issues with water movement and drainage, issues with air movement

4. Variety Selection • Most fruit trees consist of a rootstock and scion, so two varieties to consider with every tree • In OK, need a cold hardy rootstock in order to produce quality vegetative growth to support fruiting growth • Rootstock in pecans – Colby, Giles, Peruque • Rootstock in peaches – Halford

5. Variety Selection • Scion selection • In pecans, native or improved varieties • Native – not especially reliable to sizing, not uniform • Improved – developed varieties, uniform sizing and kernel filling, have differing resistances to pecan scab, temperatures, taste differences • In peaches, variety selection depends on: • timing of ripening, freestone vs. clingstone, • temperature and disease resistance

6. Water Management • Irrigation can be timed with tensiometers or electrical conductivity (EC) sensors • Irrigation is usually drip tubing with in-line emitters and can be above or underground

7. Herbicide Management • Timing of sprays is important • Maximizes effect • In orchards -- in strips or around individual trees Strips – fast and easy Around trees – slower, good for minimizing erosion depending on site location • Take special care around young trees, may need to use a shielded boom or grow tubes on trees

8. Typical Peach Orchard

9. Insect and Disease Management • Again, timing is important • Need to use integrated pest management techniques • Properly identify pest and know life cycle • Lots of models and decision support on Agweather portion of Mesonet site • www.agweather.mesonet.org

10. Insect and Disease Management • How much damage can be done before reaching an economic threshold? • Many high value crops depend on the consumer purchasing them. • Appearance, taste, and size of fruit all contribute to fruit quality • Many sprays are conducted by calendar in order to keep suppression pressure on disease and pests

11. Insects and Disease

12. Equipment • Proper calibration and timing of application are key to effective sprays • Keep equipment clean and maintained

13. Sensing technology • Basic • Tissue samples • Tensiometers and watermarks • Scouting More Advanced • Sensors for pecan weevil damage • Sensor-actuated spray systems • Aerial sensing of ET

14. Acknowledgements • Stover, E., J. Salvatore, and F. Wirth. 2003. Pesticide Spray Reduction from Using a Sensor-actuated Spray System in Indian River Grapefruit. HortTechnology 13: 178-181. • Clarke, T.R. 1997. An Empirical Approach for Detecting Crop Water Stress Using Multispectral Airborne Sensors. HortTechnology 7: 9-16. • Nunez-Elisea, R., B. Schaffer, M. Zekri, S.K. O’Hair, and J.H. Crane. 2000. Monitoring Soil Water Content in Tropical Fruit Orchards in Southern Florida with Multi-sensor Capacitance Probes and Tensiometers. HortScience 35: 487. • OSU Extension Factsheets. Available at http://pods.dasnr.okstate.edu/docushare/dsweb/HomePage.

15. Questions?