High Density 10X10 Hass and Lamb at the Nick Stehly ranch; April 3, 2014.
On April 3, 2014 80 growers, packinghouse representative and others participated in a grower field meeting at the Nick Stehly’s ranch in Pauma Valley.
Dr. Carol Lovatt, a recipient of CAC research funds, gave a presentation on her research evaluating the use of plant growth regulators as well as other topics. Her presentation was followed by a visit by most of us to a nearby block of high density (HD) management trial Dr. Gary Bender is conducting.
A tremendous amount of information, much of it very relevant and important, was compressed into an hour lecture. Unfortunately there were no evaluation sheets nor were any questions asked of the audience about their opinion of the meeting. Evaluation sheets with comments about the meeting could have been great input for planning future meetings.
- What is the purpose and value for holding such meetings in the field? It is the hands-on experience and the ability to interact freely among participants. This is by itself plenty to absorb in one day given the fact that high density planting is not well accepted in California and there are many misconceptions particularly regarding why, when and how to prune these trees for consistent production. The fruitset on the young trees (planted in 2012) we visited, Hass and Lamb on clonal Dusa rootstock was very impressive to say the least. One valuable lesson to take home is that young trees planted close together can produce a good crop by the second year in the ground. It is often the case that this first crop will produce enough income to pay for all or most of the nursery trees. It was clear that there was enough space between the trees to have 1-2 additional productive seasons before any major pruning would be needed (see attached photo).
Here is where the meeting began to falter in my view. Instead of Dr. Bender enthusiastically giving a talk on what he intends to do to the trees this year, he needed to have given more background information about high density to stimulate discussion and from that point on he should have acted as a moderator of the ensuing discussion. This is not to say that there was no interaction, what was needed was structure. More people would have been able to voice their opinion, relate their experiences and ask questions. The moderator could have asked the audience to comment on this or that topic and discussions would have followed. After all the idea is not only to demonstrate the plot but most importantly it is to understand the concepts behind this trend and how it can benefit the growers financially.
Did you come out of this part of the meeting with conviction, clear knowledge and understanding, telling yourself this makes sense or maybe it doesn’t? At least for me, and I have been involved in the evolution of high density plantings of avocados on hillsides for over 10 years, there were missing parts that either were not addressed or not deemed important. In my view it is all important! You can’t wake up one morning and decide to just plant in HD or ignore the idea of having a dense planting because you perceive that a lot of pruning is needed. What is missing is an approach with questions posed and answers provided that will eventually integrate what we know, what we want to achieve and why and then be able to take educated steps for the future.
- The presentation by Dr. Lovatt.
Is a field meeting the place to have such a presentation? There were handouts that were difficult to follow that could have been easily substituted by a power point presentation in an indoor location where the audience can relate to a specific slide such as the phenological indicators for the timing to apply different fertilizers. Even in an adequate location the amount of information presented was overwhelming. Wouldn’t it have been nice when the meeting was announced that the interested growers could have gone to a specific area of the CAS and CAC websites where a detailed syllabus could be reviewed? The announcement from the Weekly Newsline which many growers access only gave the following information:
“California Avocado – Growers Seminars —
“New and Old Ways to Meet New Challenges”
California Avocado Society; California Avocado Commission; U.C. Cooperative Extension
April Seminar: “High Density in the Field and Uniconazole Use.”
The CAC Greensheet had only the words in the last quotation marks. There is no area in the CAC website where the announcement and the details could be found. It would have been extremely useful if these announcements had included WHO was speaking even if one had to list the 3 different venues separately and exactly what topics were going to be covered. Dr. Lovatt’s comments on fertilizer use, other plant growth regulators and tree growth cycle were not advertised.
Do these announcements tell you much? There was not any detail about the scope of Dr. Lovatt’s presentation over and above the Uniconazole which occupied only a small segment of the talk. How many people know what Uniconazole is and why do we want to use it? What about the other 4 PGRs that were also discussed, wouldn’t a statement like “The use of plant growth regulators and the feasibility of their future use in avocado orchards” better describe what was presented. Why are we so timid in describing the subject of the meeting accompanied to a link to an abstract that can give a more detailed description of what the meeting is all about?
CAC has improved its outreach effort and it is evident by greater growers’ participation. What is needed now is to fortify the program with a plan of action to get the complete message across and not just some key words that only hit slightly the subject matter. It is also better in my view that more precise information about limited number of subject would be much more effective than what we witnessed on April 3 at the Nick Stehly’s ranch.
California Avocado Comments 