"We Cut the Water in Half": How River Valley Fruit Farms by the Tree, Not the Shovel
Donnie Olmstead is a fourth-generation farmer in Washington's Yakima Valley. At River Valley Fruit he manages about 1,200 acres of tree fruit, plus the field staff who connect growers to the warehouse and bring the fruit in.
Beyond the shovel
Plenty of growers still check irrigation the traditional way: dig down six or eight inches, kick the dirt, and irrigate by routine, or by the forecast. "Maybe you go, 'Oh, it's going to be 100 this week,'" Donnie says, "but I think there's way more to it than that, and Phytech is showing me that."
Seeing the tree's heartbeat
Phytech measures how the trees themselves respond to every input: irrigation, hours, fertilizer. Donnie can see the result in real time.
"When you visually see that, it looks like an EKG. It looks like a heartbeat. You see your inputs, everything you do... When you see how that impacts, it's crazy. To me, it was eye-opening."
Across 1,200 acres, that means no more guessing which block needs attention. He opens the app, spots the one block that's red, yellow or orange, and goes there first. "If I actually spend time to go to every block, that's my entire day."
Half the water, the most uniform block
Quantifying what happens in the field changed how Donnie irrigates, and the results speak for themselves.
"We cut the water in half, and I have the most uniform block I have ever seen, and I've farmed that block for nine years now."
Helping growers 50 miles away
River Valley Fruit offers Phytech to its growers. During cherry harvest, Donnie spotted a stressed block on the map at a grower's orchard down in The Dalles, two days before harvest, and had the field rep call the grower right away.
"I can now do that for a grower that is 50 miles from where we are, and all it is, is looking at an app on my phone. And if it improves their fruit and improves their pack-out, improves their returns, that's a win for all of us."
A better farmer
"It makes you a better farmer because you're more in tune with what's actually happening, and you can real-time see those changes."
Growing together
"Growers like Donnie are the reason we keep raising the bar. He doesn't just use the data, he challenges it, asks the next question, and shares what he learns with the growers around him. Advanced growers who share our vision keep pushing us forward and make Phytech better every season."
Iftach Shalev Rosenbach, WA Territory Manager, Phytech
Want to see what your trees are telling you? Talk to the Phytech team.
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