(continued from years 1 and 2)
Jon M. Clements
University of Massachusetts Extension
jon.clements@umass.edu
Poster presentation and abstract, Great Lakes Fruit Workers 2025 Meeting, Grand Rapids, MI. November 2025.
For the third growing season in a row in 2025, I partnered with Outfield Technologies (outfield.xyz) using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (DJI drones) to map apple orchard blossom density and crop load. Using an upgraded drone (Mavic 3M), flights and mapping were done in three states: Massachsetts, New Hampshire, and Minnesota. Flights were done during bloom (bloom variability), early summer (fruit count), and pre-harvest (calibrated fruit count), although not all flights were done at all timings in all orchards. Mapping was refined down to within panel (between posts) granularity over approximately 30 acres of orchard blocks including Honeycrisp, Gala, SweeTango, Evercrisp, Macoun, Ambrosia, Ludacrisp, and Cripps Pink varieties. Although the “So what?” question is not fully anserwed here, within panel variability mapping is a tool that makes variable rate spraying, hand thinning, and harvest management decisions in-turn making precision apple crop load management more plausible. Thanks to Precision Crop Load Management of Apples: USDA-NIFA-SCRI SREP 2020-51181-32197 and Massachusetts Fruit Growers’ Association to make this demonstration possible.