Doing Density Right
Managing High Density Apple Orchards
We’ve been talking about the concept of high density apples in Ontario for more than 20 years. In fact, I discovered some old slides I made on “Doing Density” for an apple meeting in 1990. In the early ‘90’s, the OMAF Apple Team travelled the province to talk to the early innovators who brought their knowledge of intensive orchards from Europe. The information and experience gathered was presented at several Apple Schools, in a factsheet series, and a Cost of Production study was completed to show that high density was the most profitable.
So high density orchards are not new, but many growers have difficulty accepting that it is the way to go – mainly due to the high investment, as well as the many changes in management required. However, there is a basic concept that is most important to understand why trees should be planted closer.
“Doing Density” works because fruit produced in the early years is much more valuable that fruit produced in later years (Figure 1). Think about this:
- If someone offered you $100 now, or $100 in one year, which would you take? Of course, you’d take the $100 now
- Similarly if your orchard produced 100 bushels this year, or 100 bushels next year, which would you take? Again, this year’s fruit is more valuable.
This concept is called Net Present Value (NPV), and is a basic economic concept. Think of NPV as the opposite of interest paid. NPV says that money received in the future will be at a discounted value compared to its value today.
Choosing to plant at a high density ensures that early yields will be higher (Figure 2). And the higher the density, the higher the early yields will be (Figure 3). Each tree produces only a certain yield (depending on the quality of the nursery tree). So, a newly-planted orchard planted at 1000 trees/acre will produce double the yield of 500 tree/acre planting in the early years.
We’ve had much discussion about why orchards are planted at less-than-optimum densities: large equipment, lots of available land, high yields from large trees, high cost of nursery trees at high density, etc. But the fact remains that economic analysis over an orchard life has shown that early yields are far more valuable that yields produced in later years (Figure 4).
So, with many growers planning their new orchard plantings, the big question remains: Are you ready to “Do Density” and get those new plantings in at the density that will give you early yields, and early returns (Figure 5)? Watch for future articles on other benefits of high density, including quality fruit, lower grade-out, and reduced labour.
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