When ‘tagging’ is a good thing

A new precision horticulture tool that guides fruit thinning workers with more accuracy has the potential to reduce unnecessary fruit losses and save New Zealand orchardists thousands of dollars in labour costs.

Tagga in action.

Developed by Fruition Hawke’s Bay, the homegrown ‘Tagga’ solution combines Green Atlas orchard scanning with a GPS-guided line marking machine to map and precisely mark which sections of an orchard need thinning to improve fruit quality and yield.

“The feedback we were getting from orchardists was ‘your fruit density scans are great, but how do I make sure the 15 backpackers I’ve hired understand them and carry out my thinning instructions accurately?’” says Alex Hoek, precision horticulture manager at Fruition Hawke’s Bay.

This birthed the idea of Tagga – a way of taking a grower’s instructions and physically laying them out in the orchard to remove the risk of less experienced workers thinning fruit in the wrong areas.

“The process involves digitally mapping an orchard using the Green Atlas Cartographer and then downloading that data to our Tagga line marking unit,” Hoek says. “The Tagga unit is then towed around the orchard by an ATV, automatically spraying the ground as it passes over it to clearly and precisely mark areas where scan data shows thinning is needed.”

Trials conducted on kiwifruit last season showed significant labour savings and much more targeted crop removal.

Two comparable 1ha blocks were used for the trial, with Tagga line markings used to guide fruit thinners on one block, and traditional thinning instructions based on a scanner-generated fruit density heatmap used as guidance on the other block.

On the block where Tagga was used, labour time for fruit thinning was 35 per cent less – a saving of 44 hours – when compared to the control block.

The Tagga block also experienced significantly less thinning of fruit in bays that were already below target, leading to around 60,000 fewer fruit being removed when compared to the control block.

“When we consider the value of gold kiwifruit, saving just 1,000 good pieces of fruit from being thinned pays for the Tagga application. Add to this labour savings and potential fruit quality gains, and it’s clear this can be a powerful tool for growers,” Hoek says.

This year Tagga will be available as an on-call service for apple and kiwifruit growers in Hawke’s Bay and Bay of Plenty, but Fruition Hawke’s Bay is considering other service models that could allow orchardists to operate the units themselves in future.

“Precision horticulture is making waves internationally because of its potential to help orchardists tailor their approach to different parts of their orchard, whether for nutrient treatment or deciding which specific vines or trees need spraying.

“The way we have used the technology for Tagga is the first time anywhere, to our knowledge, that precision horticulture technology has been used to physically spray the ground to guide horticulture workers.”

Hoek says Fruition Hawke’s Bay hopes to build on the Green Atlas orchard scanning services it offers by developing even more precision horticulture tools to maximise grower efficiency and productivity.

“In the exact same way we are painting lines at the base of select trees, we could instead be spreading fertiliser, root pruning, or spraying plant growth regulators.

“As these technologies become more available to growers, the value that can be derived from Green Atlas scan data will only get greater.”