Perennia: Orchard Tools

A custom, handheld, and efficient tool to record data about apple fruit. Orchard Tools is an app by Perennia Food and Agriculture Inc. envisioned by our Tree Fruit Specialist. These tools can empower growers to collect and interpret data for sweet success.


This tool is focused on efficiency – helping you move away from the clipboard to input data digitally and analyze it quickly. And because it’s handheld, one person can both measure and record.

With Orchard Tools you can:
*Use a handheld smartphone as an easy and efficient way to record data in the orchard.
*Input data about the diameter of king fruitlets, diameter of each fruitlet, number of fruitlets in a cluster, percentage of red blush, and fruit diameter by size grade.
*Perform in-app analysis to review averages and graphs for immediate decision-making (Premium Feature).
*Export data with the flexibility to perform your own analysis using the raw data in other programs or decision-support tools (Premium Feature).

Use the data to:
*Determine whether fruitlets are in the size range for thinning
*Export to the third-party spreadsheet tool “Predicting Fruitset” to monitor fruit growth rate for thinning decisions
*Compare natural fruit drop of untreated control trees with treated trees to evaluate a thinning program
*Monitor fruit colour and size grade on a subset of fruit prior to harvest
*Monitor fruit colour and size grade in the bin for quality control
*Research and compare treatments in scientific trials

Benefit from custom features for orchards:
*Use keyboards with large button sizes and buttons customized to the measurements being taken (10% increments, 1-5 fruitlets, diameters, size grades).
*Work without an internet or a cellular connection for data entry and in-app analysis.
*Input data securely as values are saved to your device each time a data value is entered.
*Record information on an unlimited number of dates from the same trees.
*Researchers have the option to use treatment names to organize data collected into treatment plots including treatment name, flag colours, and replication.

Your small annual subscription fee will be used to support the continued sustainability of this custom tool. Using premium features with better data collection capabilities may lead to time savings and improved decision-making.

Perennia is a development agency of the Province of Nova Scotia, Canada with the mission to help farmers, fishermen and food processors be more prosperous and profitable. We value your privacy and the app does not transmit any of the collected information to Perennia. For more information about Perennia, visit: www.perennia.ca.