Future Orchard Planting Systems for 'Step-change' Increases in Productivity Potential

摘要

The imperative for increasing the productivity of orchard planting systems is compelling on several fronts. Fruit crops provide diverse and complex nutrition. Accordingly, fruit production is part of the global need to double the productive output ofarable lands by 2050, to feed a world population projected to reach 9.5 billion (Rockstrom and Falkenmark, 2015). At the enterprise scale, costs of production mostly accrue per unit land area, so any increase in marketable yield adds to profitability. Indeed, as productivity per acre increases, profitability typically increases exponentially, since input costs other than harvest remain constant. Other drivers of change in the 21st century are focused on increasing operating efficiencies to reduce both cost and dependency on labour and resource demands. Whilst greatest attention is on labour and land supply as critically limiting resources, it is evident that other future 'scarcities' could be equally disabling, such as insecure supply of water or essential nutrients, perhaps even thefuture cost of clean energy. Truly sustainable future orchard planting systems must increase productivity in ways that maintain or even increase the natural capital and associated ecosystem services of the soil and production ecosystem (Clothier et al.,2016). In totality, these are profound but exciting challenges to improve orchard systems design and function, aiming to enable productivity increases that may approach the eco-physiological maximum potential, using fewer resources and at minimal environmental cost.