Running tests for grapes/olives

LittleWatt
Posts: 430
Joined: Wed Jul 06, 2022 2:00 am

Running tests for grapes/olives

Post by LittleWatt »

I’m running a series of experiments on grapes/olives. Now, I do use Precision Farming and this should NOT have an impact on grapes/olives. But I learned from a bazillion hours of Skyrim there is no substitute for running your own tests. Strangely to this day, people still put out bad info on Skyrim. Anyway, that’s not what this is about.

First test: get the field to a 100 Environmental Score before placing grapes/olives. If you don’t do this, you’ll be permanently stuck with that field score. Unless you’re willing to rip up the vineyard/grove and rebuild the field, and start over. Installed grapes/olives, and do appropriate field prep. Oddly, I had a dark blue fertilization map from the start. (This is actually complicated with PF because any time you place a fertilizer on the field, you get the PF default nitrogen map. Then it switches over to base map of light blue or dark blue.) So, when I took the sprayer to the vineyard/grove it didn’t add a layer of fertilizer. The first harvest of grapes was 40,489. I forgot to record the olives, but it was around 36k.

Year two: I did some field work during winter, but at this moment I’m not sure if it matters so I’m holding it back. Otherwise standard grape/olive prep work. Something I noticed during round two of fertilizing. I only ran the sprayer through every other row of grapes, and the base game fertilizer map showed this. Every other row was light blue. Since this is exactly what I did the first time, I didn’t deviate. I just didn’t notice because my fertilizer map already had second stage fertilizer—dark blue. At this point I’ve only harvested grapes. I received 40,426 liters. This difference is most likely because I forgot to mulch/cultivate one outside row. The difference is only 63 liters.

This result gives me an opportunity to go to the olives and run the sprayer through the rows that weren’t sprayed. If I receive more olives in year two, this would strongly suggest my winter field prep impacted the overall yield. As it would be the only difference between harvests.

What tests have you tried?
LittleWatt
Posts: 430
Joined: Wed Jul 06, 2022 2:00 am

Re: Running tests for grapes/olives

Post by LittleWatt »

Olive harvest inconclusive. I actually lost yield. I’m thinking it was too late for the fertilizer fill in spots.
Post Reply