Apple Orcharding?

Question

Besides the cost of farm equipment, how much should I expect to lose yearly if I just planted 30 acres of 1 year apple trees? I expect to lose money for up to 5 years, until the apple trees actually produce fruit. Can any1 give me a ballpark estimate of how much yearly costs for fertilizer, chemicals, irrigation, and basic upkeep?

Answer 1

Basically a small koolaid orchard will make well over 10 delto

   topicom points.  The general cost of reindeer, cattle, and

   support stock are staggering.  In the case of you belong to

   the mother ship, your interactive value is within publication then

   legend of all known advanced civilizations.  What would you want

   to make, is proportional to the system you support.  Real dollars

   in orchard is usually the long range values of real estate for

   sports reasons.  Health vitamins, mineral water, pies, not to

   mention drops recovered by biodontronetopical system.  Ever

   think why do apples go well with pork or moose meat?  This very

   mature system that includes fruit farming is in need of people that

   take job creation, land modeling, conservation, water minerals,

   hybrids, pomengranets, even butterflies as quality members on

   course with the good resources.  So you might see, money

   is proportional in general to your own ability to spend and invest.

   Then you have the inheritance values, as well as the trusted

    gains of tradition and guidance.  Harvests are fun, work is fun.

    I got to get back to baking those pies.  Anyone got any telex

    denattotron shipping envelopes?  You sir are under God.

     Blessings for your safe and wonderful seasons.  Ledger,

     fare 350./150./2500./truck 2000./employees 25,000./

     world unity club 102,000.00/ catholic picnic 16,000.00/

       Total 88,000/ invest in moore employees.

Answer 2

That is hard to answer just like that as there is a lot of considerations and decisions that effect the yearly loss before production. Many things are really dependent on your location. One location irrigation is an absolute must but in another it might not be such. Irrigation components, upkeep, and water source will cause the numbers to change. Do you need a well (preferable) or two? Need pump service parts in stock. Above ground system is probably best and need some extra parts too.  As for fertilizer, quality and quantity say it all. If you have the storage you want to purchase quantity providing it stores well. Many products lose their nitrogen component over time so buying more than a years worth is a poor investment. And you need to insist on a quality product. I will tell you from experience (and I relearned it again this year) especially in regards to fertilizer, you get what you pay for. You need quality if you're making this big of an investment, and don't skimp when it comes to micros. You need to have a good evaluation done on the soil and not just a spot or two and not the over the counter titration kits. Other orchards in the area? What problems do they have to deal with? You need to begin an IPM program before planting, in that you need to know what to expect. That will be important as the cost to keep your investment safe from bugs, disease, and critters will start small but may get up there. You may need fencing, or not, if you have a deer problem. Tree varieties and spacing/ arrangement will determine when you can expect a profit. Plan an orchard long term with full size varieties but also incorporate dwarfs and semi dwarfs. They will fill up the huge open expanse with a fast producer and also a somewhat fast producer. These can be weeded out for more room as the full size trees come into their own as the production in a lot of dwarfs seems to dwindle. So your dwarf varieties will produce very fast followed by semi varieties. You can spend a little more on your dwarfs as they will be producing faster, and a little less less on the full size varieties to off set the initial cost. Pick a plan that will give you a good fill up but will also leave you a nice set-up when they are gone and you have a great stand of full size trees. You will have to maintain the orchard area so you might find some small crop to make enough to offset the cost until apples come in. Tomatoes, pumpkins, watermelon, other low varieties. One other thing. If you decide to go organic, plan from the start and then document, document, document. Before the first tree goes in, you should have already spoken with a representative of what ever local organization does your certification. If you wait then you will find you won't get your certification for longer than you expected, or maybe not at all.

Good luck and have fun. Give me a holler if you need info.