Counting the crop

摘要

On a humid July morning, growers Bob and Thom Betts were out in their Concord vineyards, harvesting hard green grapes. Guided by a multi-colored map of productivity zones in the block, they gathered and weighed small samples of unripe grapes to get amore accurate view of their crop load — ranging from 3 tons an acre to 11 tons an acre—well in advance of harvest."What we're doing first is just crop estimating. When we get done with that block, if it needs thinned, we'll go back and thin the higher yield areas," said Thom Betts, ashe guided the harvester, equipped with yield monitors, toward a sampling zone. The zone, 100th of an acre, or 48 feet along a row, was highlighted on the map on his interactive display. "The color zones represent the vigor, and we want the harvester to take different amounts of fruit off in different vigor zones."