Flower Monitoring in a Hedge Almond Orchard with Image Analysis

Abstract

The hedge almond orchards is a recent technology, for which available information is scarce. In an almond orchard, variety Soleta, planted in September 2014, in Herdade da Torre das Figueiras – Monforte - Portugal (39º 04’ N; 07º 29’ W), a trial to evaluate different pruning treatments was established. The flowering intensity was evaluated as function of four pruning treatments, which influences the number and length of branches. The flowering was evaluated in 2019 and 2020, with image analysis. For each tree, a vertical photograph of the crown was taken perpendicularly to the tree line, using a contrasting background. A total of 360 trees were surveyed. The flowering area was quantified per tree using an image analysis software. The results show significant differences for the flowering area between years, with the largest in 2019. This is indicative of a trend towards the fluctuation of the flowering level. Significant differences were also observed between pruning treatments. In both years, the smallest flowering area was observed in manual pruning. Overall, manual pruning had lower flowers’ density, which could be due to the removal of shoots of excessive development lengthwise. The results show that monitoring based on photograph image analysis might be an option to evaluate flowering and its variability between years for the hedge orchards.