How big is Australia’s Lychee industry? The short answer is like many Australian tree crop industries, the current location and extent (area) of commercial lychee orchards is unknown.
To address the data gap, under a new project to “Spatially enable the Australian Tree Crop Industry” funded by Hort Innovation and the Future Food Systems CRC, the University of New England’s Applied Agricultural Remote Sensing Centre (AARSC) will expand the Australian Tree Crop Map (ATCM) to include all commercial lychee orchards (> 1 hectare).
Presented in the ATCM Dashboard, the map will deliver the Australian Lychee Growers Association (ALGA) an accurate map of their current area of production supporting decision-making across industry and stakeholders at multiple-scales. In the longer term, the spatial information will underpin industry-wide strategies and opportunities such as the future planning of labour and infrastructure requirements, improve preparedness and response to biosecurity threats, recovery from natural disasters, water security, traceability, supply chain and new market access.
Additionally, the baseline map will support value-added analysis in future including the whole of industry benchmarking of orchard health, currently and historically at multiple-scales (orchard, farm and region). This data can indicate the impacts of varied seasonal weather conditions, management, pest and disease and a changing climate that in turn can be used to better understand the drivers of yield and quality, and better predict these metrics into the future.
Map showing location of crop types (lychee is light blue)
Development of the map will be based on the current methodology developed by the AARSC. Importantly, the mapping adheres to national standards for land use mapping, supported by the Australian Collaborative Land Use and Management Program (ACLUMP). No personal or commercial information is collected or included in the map. The map simply presents the location and extent of orchards. No property boundaries, commercial information (block, variety, yield, etc.) or personal information (grower, enterprise, owner) are included.
Information sources used to compile the map include remotely sensed data (satellite and aerial imagery), industry data, field observation and importantly industry engagement supported by location-based tools developed by the AARSC. Collaborating with industry is important for building an accurate map and is essential for mapping new plantings (which cannot be mapped with satellite imagery alone).
To establish the most accurate baseline data, ALGA encourage growers to visit:
experience.arcgis.com/experience/413f33d9b88e4f94b1c4187ea1125c4d
then 1. find your orchard by searching or using the navigation controls, and
2.Click the big green button to add your feedback to the map.
“AARSC developed the ATCM Survey as a simple location-based tool to enable contribution from industry and stakeholders. To date we have received over 4,000 survey responses! It’s invaluable to building an accurate map and essential for mapping new plantings which cannot be mapped with satellite imagery alone.” – Craig Shephard (Senior Researcher, AARSC).
Source: Applied Agricultural Remote Sensing Centre, University of New England, Armidale www.une.edu.au/aarsc