HMC News – April 2025
We are thinning in our stone fruit orchards. Thinning removes excess, under-sized, or damaged juvenile fruit from our trees. When a tree is thinned, approximately two to seven pieces of fruit are left on each fruiting limb, also known as a hanger. The amount of fruit left on a hanger is determined by the age of the tree, the variety, and the timing of harvest. Thinning ensures that nutrients are directed to fewer pieces of fruit, resulting in better size and flavor. It also protects the tree from damage due to too much weight on the limbs. Pictured is a peach hanger with thinned fruit and leaves below.
Tree fruit season is right around the corner. Stone fruit sizing is beginning to pick up, and we are almost fully ramped up with our thinning crews. The crop looks good, with plenty of thinned fruits on the ground, indicating a healthy full crop. Harvest timing appears to be 2 – 3 days behind last year. If the warm weather continues for the remainder of the month, we can make those days up and start around the same time as last year.
We are starting to get a better feel for the plum crop for this upcoming season. Our current assessment is that the overall crop will be just a bit lighter than normal. However, there are specific varieties and farms where the crop load is significantly reduced. Timing for stone fruit looks to be right in line with last year, as weather has been optimal over the last couple of weeks for stone fruit maturation. We are currently busy thinning stone fruit, a process that typically runs into May, and sometimes even later.
We are starting a trial with a company called “Bloomfield” this month. For the trial we’ve attached two high powered cameras on the front of one of our tractors. Every time that tractor drives through the vineyard, we will be capturing images and the geo-location of the vines, which will then get sent to the cloud for analysis. In theory this will provide us with information like shoot counts/lengths, cluster/berry counts and sizes. Berry and color/maturity is not yet an option but is in the works as well.
This season we are testing a new piece of technology from a company called XLSOR. XLSOR is a data collection device that scans fruit in the orchard and provides detailed reports on the fruit’s quality progression as well as an estimate of when the fruit will be ready to harvest. Four weeks and two weeks prior to the estimated harvest time of a variety, we take the handheld device out to the orchard to test 50 pieces of fruit. The device has an infrared sensor that measures chlorophyl and dry matter content, all while leaving the fruit on the tree. This information combined with bloom data and local weather data help provide an objective harvest prediction within a day or two. Over the coming seasons, the software model will continue to improve and provide more accuracy. Given that the harvest window for stone fruit is very narrow to achieve the best quality, and our weather is becoming more unpredictable, having analytical data and a harvest prediction 3-4weeks out will be a major help for us as a company and help us better serve our customers.
