I’m not sure what relationship exactly that our supplier has with AEA except they know and talk with John and using nova crop for sap analysis suggests to me they are very similar, given we’re on the other side of the world.

I’ve uploaded a picture of our San Andreas, planted between Sept 14 – 28 last year, 35cm apart and next season 40cm apart. They are loving it.

I will research more about thinning the crown – we just cut the leaves back and have tried different ways.

Some growers use a finisher to give their fields a hair cut, some use mowers, some by hand. For the record, we didn’t get around to cutting back the San Andreas field with the high volume crop. Apart from plant hygiene, we did not notice anything bad for leaving it, but would prefer to have had it done.

What I did notice in detail was the impact of severely cutting the plants back. Truth be told, we had the best outcomes when we leave the plant in it’s dormancy and then just before winter finishes, get out and just trim back what we needed to. The plants need to be nutured, not totured and they give back in spades… or should I say … punnets. ????

We just didn’t have time, but we have been able to manage the runner growth and we have given the new field a hair cut as well, so it’s thanked us for that by being very productive.

We’ll get a brix meter this year. We generally go on tasting the fruit in the field. Personally I think counting the fruit and expecting them to be in the punnet from the point of being a flower is too risky. There are so many changes in weather that affect us, particularly in summer so I’m not confident about that approach. But then again, I am just a new person in the industry, so perhaps over time, there is something to it. In our little new farming life, this is the very first season where the weather has been kind, the kangaroo and deer not present, and more to that, the fertiliser much closer to what the plant needs.