After a successful harvest, it is essential that steps are taken to ensure the orchard is provided with improved post-harvest nutrition, controlled biennial bearing and increased flowering opportunities.
These steps will ensure that healthy spring growth is achieved as well as a strong vigorous root system being maintained below the ground.
1 Maximise flower opportunities
Flowering is an important time for tree crops as it can define the rest of the season through to harvest.
Strong flowering and pollination can result in greater fruit set and yield. As such, it is important to provide trees with the right nutrients.
David Cavallaro, Stoller National Sales Manager says that while a good nutritional balance of all elements is always important for improving plant growth, zinc and boron play key roles at flowering by promoting good flower development and pollination.
“Calcium is also an important nutrient at flowering, as it contributes to cell growth in the plant,” David added.
“As such, providing plant available forms of zinc, boron and calcium at flowering is very important.”
Stoller’s Zinc Chelate
Stoller’s Zinc Chelate provides a highly available form of zinc to the plant, that can be used to target the increased need for zinc at flowering.
The chelate allows the nutrient to be easily absorbed into the plant and protects it from being locked up in the soil.
Stoller’s Liquid Boron
Stoller’s Liquid Boron offers a highly available source of boron to crops when foliar sprayed, allowing trees access to boron during flowering.
Stoller’s Flower Power
Stoller’s Flower Power contains both zinc and boron and is designed to increase fruit set by optimising flowering and pollination.
It combines the key nutrients zinc and boron with Stoller’s Co-Factors to support crops through the flowering stage, and improve pollination strength.
It is designed to specifically optimise the flowering and pollination of crops in cooler climate areas or to assist trees that are under cold stress.
2 Minimise biennial bearing
Didn’t achieve the high yields you produced last year? This could be due to biennial bearing and it is important to keep this in mind as the next year’s crop could be lighter than average.
Stoller Australia has developed a strategy to reduce the effect of biennial bearing and help your crop to set as much fruit as possible, increasing yield and ultimately your returns.
Stoller’s Flower Power is ideal for increasing flowering and pollination strength, and increasing overall fruit set for the season. By increasing fruit set, the trees are given the chance to improve their potential yield.
Stoller’s Foli-Zyme
Stoller’s Foli-Zyme is a key part of the program as it encourages leaf growth on trees and increases the leaf-to-fruit ratio.
This gives the tree the support it needs to maintain adequate levels of energy towards fruit growth.
Stoller’s Sugar Mover
In crops with low to medium fruit set and high vegetative growth, Stoller’s Sugar Mover can be applied to redirect vegetative growth back towards regenerative growth.
This moves sugars back into the buds prior to regeneration and promotes fruitful buds over vegetative buds.
“The control of biennial bearing through optimising flowering and vegetative growth is pivotal to improving crop consistency from season to season,” says David.
3 Building a healthy root system
To manage balanced and healthy growth from season to season it is important to ensure the continual building of a strong and vigorous root system.
“The roots are the control centre of the plant and are responsible for nutrient uptake and hormone balance,” David explains.
“The healthier the root system, the greater the crop’s ability to uptake key nutrients and withstand stress events, leading to greater yields at harvest.”
Good root growth requires not only phosphorus but an available source of calcium and an amine form of nitrogen which can be used directly in the roots.
Stoller’s RootFeed
Stoller’s RootFeed is specifically designed to provide plants with a source of amine nitrogen as well as calcium and magnesium directly to the roots.
Apply RootFeed every 7–14 days through to harvest to ensure the continual replacement of the root cell caps responsible for the production of plant hormones and the control of healthy plant growth.
Information and advice
Take these steps to ensure the best possible start to your season.
Talk to your local agronomist, authorised dealer or Stoller Australia representative for information and advice on the best strategy to suit your orchard as well as the latest trial results.
Stoller Australia’s programs can be tailored to address any problem and help you to maximise yield for the season ahead.
Contact Stoller phone 1800-Fertiliser
www.stoller.com.au
See this article in Tree Fruit Aug 2017
