Long time - no write

As you can gather from my frequent writings I have been busy.  The harvest was one of the biggest that I can remember and according all records I have of the farm.  We were about 48% up from the previous year and most  produce were one of the biggest yet by Withoek.  Just our plums disappointed but with only 3% of the area and of that 2% is still in its first year I can't really complain. 
Because of all the plantings recently we decided not to plant anything this year.  Of all our fruit about 26% is less than 4 years old.  Meaning still not in full production.  No the questions is when do the different fruit groups come into full production.  With grapes it seems the 3 year you are very near and with peaches it looks like the 4th year. Apricots takes the longest according to my experience and will only start to produce good yields in the 5th an 6th year.  Luckily I planted a lot of grapes recently. 
We are busy cleaning the farm up.  Especially the weeds that took over while we harvested must be controled as we are also in the phase of after harvest fertilizing.  This means that we reward the plants that did produce with nitrogen(N) and potasium (K).  This is given according to the yields of every block.  Usually a rule of thumb is about 2kg for each tonne fruit delivered from the block.  You must also take into account the growth pattern (vigorous or normal or bad) and the fruit type (apricots / peach / plum / grapes). 
We are lucky that because of the investment in the infrastructure we now fertigate (irrigate with fertilizer).  This means better introduction of the fertilizer and hopefully better delivery to the plant.  We also give it in two parts so that better absorbtion takes place.  If you do it at home you must leave a week or two weeks in between the different parts as the plant will otherwise think the overflow of N and K is normal and then it doesn't absorb as much. 
We will be irrigating until the second week into May and then stop.  The plants roots because of the colder weather will grow slower and leaves will be lost and thus the plants doesn't need that much water anymore.  A good irrigation will probably take place in the end of June - beginning July to get water in the rootzone before the first root growth of the summer. 

Well I will be back ....sooner