What I offer
I offer regular consultancy advice or one-off bespoke visits to address particular issues, both strategic and practical.
Strategic support and mentoring
My strategic support and mentoring can cover:
- Business strategy at Board level
- Orchard performance analysis and benchmarking
- Management planning and budgeting
- Workforce planning
- Staff appraisals
- Harvest planning and harvest management applications
- Audit mentoring
- Environmental land management options
- Woodland management options
Practical support
I offer a range of practical support for top fruit, grapes and blackcurrants, including:
- Development and running of pruning workshops for staff
- Technical aspects of tree architecture and training
- Variety thinning strategies to maximise Class 1 orchard packouts
- Technical expertise of growing & harvesting the premium apple varieties Jazz® and Pink Lady® under UK conditions
- Crop estimation advice
- Development of bespoke irrigation and fertigation programs
- New orchard and vineyard planning, including choices of rootstock varieties and clones suitable for the UK
- Crop cover options, including orchard hail net systems
- Machinery options to reduce labour requirements
Contacts
I have excellent European nursery connections and have experience of importing trees and other orchard consumables from the continent. Having travelled extensively I have also developed many contacts in the Southern Hemisphere.
Where I work
Now based in Powys, Wales, I regularly consult in England and travel to all the main fruit growing areas in the UK.
