Brix

I don't wanna fear the fruit that's out there in the orchard.

And to be able to do that and have the fruit quality, the fruit finish being an indicator of quality, the firmness, the Brix numbers being an indicator of quality, and the packout, those are all really great things to, uh, to accomplish.

And so what we have seen, um, on a number of our own, on a number of our locations, um, and I would say it's increasing, um, every year, we're s- uh, you know, you can have a one-off year where you just have something exemplary because some of those things that you don't control came together to help it work.

Um, we've now seen, uh, con- uh, re- repeat seasons, um, with high tonnage, with high packout, and high yield with size there.

The trees are one year older, but we had just under 13 tons, uh, uh, per acre of production there.

And I think the packouts were somewhere in the 80s for that with, um, three hun- mid-300s firmness.

And the Brix numbers were everywhere from the samples we took, from 20 to 26, uh, Brix came in from that, from that fruit.

That's outstanding because again, a lot of times when w- in the past-

Time's up.

Has anyone tested the impact of nutrients and Brix from foliar spraying would think there must be some decline.

Decline in the Brix level.

Exactly right.

So you use a refractometer as a measurement of the sugar levels, and the sugar levels, they're also telling you the mineral levels.

But...

And then I would do a reading on the plant.

It would give me a before Brix level and an after Brix level, and you would see it would shoot up because foliar spraying is bypassing the root system, going right into the plant, 'cause absorbing immediately-

But is that...

So it's the same as Brix?

Yeah.

More or less.

You're telling me you look at that side and you don't have a reference chart taped to the wall?

No, I don't wa- I, it's in...

I have Brix, which I didn't know that was a s- I mean, I knew they were similar, but I thought they were, like, slightly different.

I thought Plato and Brix were slightly different, and so it's just Plato, which is the cooler word to say.

And it doesn't need a lot of honeydew in order to start growing and then getting this sooty mould effect that's growing over all the plants.

So one of the best things that you can, uh, you can, you can do for it is to, um, increase the Brix level.

That is B-R-I-X, which is the, the, the, the content of, of its sugar in the, each of the plants, particularly when they're in, in a situation like a shady situation where they're, they're coming under some sort of stress.

You really need to, to give them as much goodness and opportunity to fight off, you know, pest and disease.

And the best way to do it, do that is increase their Brix level.

And one of the things you can use there is something like Monash rock dust, which will provide these wonderful trace elements and minerals at the plant, probably not getting access to them at all.

One of the worst plants to actually spread sooty mould in actual fact are oak trees.

But the middles are all perfect because pests don't like healthy plants.

Pests don't like plants that have a high Brix level.

A high Brix level is something that illustrates that a plant is in connection with soil microbes.

It raises its sugar, you know.

It indicates a plant that is feeding well from the sun.

Yeah, 2023.

Can you explain what Brix is? Are you talking about something you build something with? What's a Brix?

It's spelled B-R-I-X, and it is a measure of sugar in the grapes.

So I don't know if you know this, Tim, but the way you make wine is you take grapes – that have lots of sugar and you add yeast and the yeast eats the sugar and farts out alcohol.

Thank you.

not.

Quite a few farmers now will test their colostrum at point of harvest, either with a Brix refractometer or with colostrum balls or a colostrometer.

So it would tell them the percentage quality in there.

And some of our farmers would then supplement with artificial colostrum.