UNIT-3

PRINCIPLES OF ORCHARD ESTABLISHMENT

1. Establishment of orchard
2. Orchard cultivation

1. Establishment of orchard

Establishment of an orchard is a long term investment and deserves a very critical planning.
The selection of proper location and site, planting system and planting distance, choosing the
varieties and the nursery plants have to be considered carefully to ensure maximum
production.

Location and site

Proper selection of site is important. Selection may be made based on the following criteria.
1. The location should be in a well established fruit growing region because one could get the
benefit of experience of other growers and also get the benefit of selling the produce through
co-operative organizations with other fruit growers.
2. There should be a market close to the area.
3. The climate should be suitable to grow the chosen fruit crops.
4. Adequate water supply should be available round the year.
Before a grower selects a site for establishing a new orchard, he must have assessed the
following factors:
1. Suitability of soil, its fertility, the nature of subsoil and soil depth.
2. Site must have proper drainage and no water stagnation during rainy season
3. Irrigation water must be of good quality.
4. There must be proper transport facilities either by road or rail within the reach.
5. Whether the climatic conditions are suitable for the fruits to be grown and are whether site
is free from the limiting factors such as cyclones, frost, hailstorms and strong hot winds.
6. Whether there are seasonal gluts or over production in any particular period of the year.
7. Whether there is assured demand in the market for the fruits to be grown.
8. Whether his orchard is a new venture or whether there are already other growers.
9. Availability of labour.

Preliminary operations
After selecting the suitable location and site, some preliminary operations have to be done.
Trees are felled without leaving stumps or roots. The shrubs and other weedy growth are also
cleared. Deep ploughing is essential to remove big roots. The lands should be thoroughly
ploughed, leveled and manured. Leveling is important for economy of irrigation and
preventing soil wash. In the hills, the land should be divided into terraces depending upon the
topography of the land and the leveling is done within the terraces. Terracing protects the
land from erosion. If the soil is poor, it would be advisable to grow a green manure crop and
plough it insitu so as to improve its physical and chemical conditions before planting
operations are taken up.

Planning of an orchard
A careful plan of the orchard is necessary for the most efficient and economic management.
The following points should be borne in mind in preparing the plan.
1. Optimum spacing to accommodate maximum number of trees per unit area.
2. Stores and office building in the orchard should be constructed at the centre for proper
supervision.
3. Wells should be located at convenient places in different parts at the rate of one well for 2
to 4 hectares.
4. Each kind of fruit should be assigned in a separate block.
5. Fruits ripening at the same time should be grouped together.
6. Pollinators should be provided in deciduous fruits. In deciduous fruit trees, there are some
varieties which require pollen from another variety to set fruits in them, otherwise, they will
be barren. Such pollen donors are known as pollinators..Every third tree in every third row
should be planted with a pollinator.
7. Irrigation channels should be laid along the gradients for most economical conduct of
water. For every 30m length of channel, 7.5 cm slope should be given.
8. Roads should occupy minimum space for the economy of transport. The clearance between
wind break and first row of trees is advantageous for the road.
9. Short growing trees should be allotted at the front and tall at the back for easy watching
and to improve the appearance.
10. Evergreen trees should be in the front and deciduous ones behind.
11. Fruits attracting birds and animals should be close to the watchman's shed.
12. A good fence is essential. Live fencing is economic and cheap to other kind of fences.
The plants suitable for live fencing should be drought resistant, easy to propagate from seed,
quick growing, have dense foliage, should stand severe pruning and should be thorny. Agave,
Prosopis juliflora, Pithecolobium dulce and Thevetia if closely planted in 3 rows would serve
as a good live fencing.
13. Wind breaks, rows of tall trees planted close together around the orchard, are essential to
resist velocity of wind which cause severe ill-effects particularly moisture evaporation from
the soil. Since the wind breaks are very effective in reducing the wind velocity and
minimizing the damage to the fruit trees and to other crops, their presence in regions where
strong winds prevail is of paramount importance. A wind break ordinarily has its maximum
effectiveness for a distance about four times as great as its height but has some effect over
twice about that distance.

The most effective windbreak is a double row of tall trees alternately placed. There should be
at least as much as space between the windbreak and the first row of the fruit trees as between
fruit trees. It is preferable to dig a trench of 90 cm deep at a distance of 3m from the
windbreak trees and prune and cut all the roots exposed and again fill up the trenches. This
may be repeated for every 3 or 4 years in order to avoid the compe1ition between the wind
breaks and fruit trees for moisture and nutrition.

Trees suitable for windbreak should be erect, tall and quick growing, hardy and drought
resistant and mechanically strong and dense to offer maximum resistance to wind. The trees
which are suitable for growing as wind breaks are Casuarina equisetifolia, Pterospermum
acerifolium, Polyalthia longifolia, Eucalyptus globulus, Grevillea robusta, Azadirachta
indica etc.

Laying out of orchards

Any method of layout should aim at providing maximum number of trees per hectare,
adequate space for proper development of the trees and ensuring convenience in orchard
cultural practices. The system of layout can be grouped under two broad categories viz. (a)
vertical row planting pattern and (b) alternate row planting pattern. In the former planting
pattern (e.g. square system, rectangular system), the trees set in a row is exactly perpendicular
to those trees set in their adjacent rows. In the latter planting pattern (i.e. Hexagonal,
Quincunx and Triangular), the trees in the adjacent rows are not exactly vertical instead the
trees in the even rows are midway between those in the odd rows.

The various layout systems used are the following:

a) Vertical row planting pattern
1. Square system:

In this system, trees are planted on each comer of a

square whatever may be the planting distance. This
is the most commonly followed system and is very
easy to layout. The central place between four trees
may be advantageously used to raise short lived
filler trees. This system permits inter cropping and
cultivation in two directions.

2. Rectangular system:

In this system, trees are planted on each corner of a

rectangle. As the distance between any two rows is
more than the distance between any two trees in a
row, there is no equal distribution of space per tree.
The wider alley spaces available between rows of
trees permit easy intercultural operations and even
the use of mechanical operations.
b) Alternate row planting pattern
3. Hexagonal System:

In this method, the trees are planted in each comer

of an equilateral triangle. This way six trees form a
hexagon with the seventh tree in the centre.
Therefore this system is also called as 'septule' as a
seventh tree is accommodated in the centre of
hexagon. This system provides equal spacing but it is difficult to layout. The perpendicular
distance between any two adjacent rows is equal to the product of 0.866 x the distance
between any two trees. As the perpendicular distance between any two row is less than unity,
this system accommodates 15% more trees than the square system. The limitations of this
system are that it is difficult to layout and the cultivation is not so easily done as in the square
system.

4. Diagonal or quincunx system:

This is the square method but with one more plant in

the centre of the square. This will accommodate double
the number of plants, but does not provide equal
spacing. The central (filler) tree chosen may be a short
lived one. This system can be followed when the
distance between the permanent trees is more than
10m. As there will be competition between permanent and filler trees, the filler trees should
be removed after a few years when main trees come to bearing.

5. Contour system:

It is adopted in hilly areas for planting fruit plants

where land is undulated and soils erosion is a great
threat. Under such circumstances, contour terrace is
developed by scratching and levelling the hill-slope.
The width of contour terrace varies according to the
slope of the hill. At stiff hill slope, the width is kept narrower.