The use of the Cartographer (Green Atlas) for determining physiological changes in avocado trees and consequent timing of orchard management toward fruit robustness

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2024

Journal Title

ISHS Acta Horticulturae

Keywords

calcium, canopy growth, electronic imaging, fruit quality, LiDAR

Disciplines

Fruit Science | Horticulture

Abstract

Avocado fruit robustness is a poorly defined parameter linked to fruit calcium content that describes how well an avocado fruit stands up to injury due to supply chain handling, supply chain temperature changes, and consumer handling. Early season predictions of future fruit robustness are currently not possible, therefore the evaluation of novel technologies for the prediction and management of fruit robustness has been initiated. Calcium has been shown to be a driver for fruit robustness in avocado, but its management is complicated as it is only available to the fruit for a short time after flowering and is controlled by multiple factors including transpiration, soil, root interactions with the soil, and particularly by the size of and growth of the tree canopy. The Green Atlas platform Cartographer is a fast mobile orchard scanning system that uses cameras and LiDAR to quantitatively measure canopy parameters such as leaf area, canopy density, and tree height. The Cartographer was used to measure ‘Hass’ avocado tree growth over three sites in Western Australia and was effective at identifying statistically relevant changes in tree growth over time for the above canopy parameters. With future calibration, changes in canopy growth of avocado trees, as measured by Cartographer, may be a fast non-destructive method of determining calcium absorption and fruit robustness and be a practical management tool for avocado producers.

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Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2024.1395.35