Turning orange: Dareton citrus growers Richard and
Judy Bertalli, in a patch of Washington navel orange trees.
High-density orchard pays off
Sandra Godwin
February 4, 2009
RICHARD Bertalli shook his head the first time he crunched the numbers.
But after they came up a third time, he figured the calculations that showed his 0.4ha block of summer gold navel oranges returned $288 a bin, or $25,383, must be right.
"I checked it three times and that was the figure I got," Richard said.
"It's hard to believe, but now I've got to convince everyone else."
The remarkable figure was achieved from high-density planting of summer gold navel oranges on the 14.6ha orchard Richard and his wife Judy operate near Dareton, northwest of Mildura, Victoria.
A former Department of Agriculture extension services assistant, Richard grew up on the property.
But after 10 years in the public service he decided the "little farm" - 2.4ha of table grapes - wasn't enough and they bought the family orchard in 1981.
Richard's late father, George, had planted the property to citrus and sultana and gordo grapes which Richard and Judy dried and later grew for winemaking.
But after comparing the costs, workload and returns, the couple opted to bulldoze the grape vines and in 1986 started a 19-year citrus replanting program.
"We decided to plant what everybody was pulling out," Richard said.
"They were planting wine grapes and we went the other way.
"In hindsight it's paid off handsomely."
With the idea of supplying fruit throughout the entire growing season and avoiding the use of chemical growth regulators, they planted 10 navel types and gave the orchard the name Top Ten Navel Citrus Grove.
There are three early, two mid-season and five late orange varieties: ryan, navelina, leng, atwood, washington, summer gold, lane, barnfield, autumn gold and chis-elite.
A former seamstress, restaurant owner and outreach worker, Judy returned to the farm in 2000 and started learning about citrus production.
"I made the farm a challenge," she said.
"Together we've conquered a lot of things other people would give up on."
The Bertallis employ "three or four pickers" for most of the year and spend about two weeks harvesting each type.
They were among the first citrus growers in the Sunraysia to adopt high-density planting - their first experiment was 420 summer gold trees on a 0.4ha block about 12 years ago.
That patch has consistently yielded 36 tonnes, three times the district average, and returns for the previous four years averaged $12,855.
Based on preliminary data, Richard said he expected last year's return to reach $16,500, but the final figure was $25,383.
And that was on the back of drought and two years of drastically reduced water allocations.
"I've never gone along with the idea of get big or get out," Richard said.
"We had four children . . . and they won't be coming home on the farm so we just wanted to be able to maintain, once we got to 60, our lifestyle, income and still be able to cope with it ourselves with a bit of casual help.
"Rather than running around trying to spray weeds and spray trees and fertilise and water trees on 100 acres (40.4ha), I can do the same on my original 36 acres (14.6ha) of dirt, but I've got (the equivalent of) 50 acres (20ha) of trees.
"It's not rocket science (and) it's not my idea. I've just implemented it."
Half the property is now under high-density plantings of 1037 trees a hectare compared to the traditional 494 trees/ha.
Richard said he pushed the trees "pretty hard" with his program of ground and foliar fertilisers.
Despite having almost 2 1/2 times as many trees, he estimates water consumption has increased only about 20 per cent.
A drip irrigation system is being installed in the orchard, but the low-level sprinklers will be retained for frost protection and to irrigate cover crops of Japanese millet (summer) and barley (winter) that are usually grown between the rows and slashed for mulch.
Richard said he chose not to buy temporary water to augment the existing 198-megalitre Western Murray Irrigation water entitlement during 2006-07 and 2007-08 when irrigation allocations were slashed to less than half.
"We've kept up with technology, so we've been able to do more with our water," he said.
"Plus we went to every drought meeting and course we could fit in (during the first year of reduced allocations), sometimes twice if there was something we didn't quite understand.
"It really helped us. Because we had all young trees - the oldest is 20 - we couldn't turn the water off anywhere, but they gave us the option of slaughtering trees, cutting them in half . . . we came home in November 2007 and went through 50 per cent of the property and reduced all those trees by 50 per cent in foliage.
"It was the right thing to do at the time.
"We saved our trees and when we came to pick the crops, they were down 40 per cent in production but the fruit was magnificent and now we have very nice trees. "Luckily it rained and we didn't have to do the other half."
The trees, especially the Washington navels, have grown back surprisingly quickly and Richard said the uniformity of this year's emerging fruit was remarkable.
The fruit is packed by the Mildura Co-operative Fruit Company and most exported to the US. The Bertallis also produce chis-elite navels for sale in Coles supermarkets.
Ground-breaking: Richard and Judy pioneered
high-density planning.
Waterwise: the Bertallis irrigate their Dareton citrus
orchard with low-level sprinklers. 
