Peach Production In Nepal

Peach production requires a lot of labour and many hours of work.  With a peach orchard there is little need or often no need, for the use of equipment.  During the summer months the orchard will need to be cared for in the prevention of pests as well as thinning the trees.  Apart from the time the fruit needs to be harvested, all the labour that is required can be done by a few people, depending on the size of the orchard (Crassweller, Kime & Harper, n.d.).  To start the orchard the land should be prepared like any other crop.  Ploughing the ground and trying to make it as even as possible is important for even water distribution.  The land should also be weeded and broadleaf field crops should not have been grown on the land prior to the orchard.  If possible, the soil should also be tested to ensure the land will provide the needs of the trees with respect to nutrients (Crassweller et al. n.d.).  When planting, the trees should be in rows to allow easy access to the plants, even distributions of resources, so weed are more visible and this will allow for the potential for intercropping (Raizada, 2015).   After the initial work of planting the trees, they then have to be cared for.  The application of nitrogen fertilizer is essential in the first years of the trees’ development.  The fertilizers that are essential when caring for a peach tree are: nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, boron, copper and zinc (Crassweller et al. n.d.).  Once a tree starts to produce fruit it then needs to be thinned which can require a lot of time, seeing as it is a task that is done by hand.  When the fruit is very small and just starting to develop someone needs to go and remove all the smaller less developed fruit around the larger one to allow for its full development (Gurney’s Seed, 2010).  Pruning also requires labour toremove 

the branches not producing as much fruit or when they are blocking other

branched from sunlight. When it comes to harvestingthe trees it depends on

how many trees are in an orchard to how many people will be needed. 

Many people are needed for two major reasons,first, the time frame in which

the peaches are ripe is very short so it is possible many if not all of the trees

would need to be harvested around the same time, and the second reason is

that all the peaches on a tree may not be ripe at the same time so one tree

may need to picked multiple times at different times in the harvesting period.

After the peaches have been harvested they need to be cared for in the sense

that they should not be bruised or damaged (Crassweller et al. n.d.).   Even

if family labour is available it might not be enough to get the job done in the

time it needs to be so extra help may be necessary.  Peach harvest is very

time sensitive.