Visualising Spatial Patterns in Fruit Quality and Productivity of Persimmon Orchards using Self Organising Maps

Fruit quality and productivity datasets, obtained over two seasons from 24 New Zealand persimmon orchards, were associated with a self organising map trained on the spatial coordinates and geographic region of each orchard. Using this approach, a summary representation of the geographic distribution of the orchards was obtained from the projection plane of the self organising map. By overlaying fruit quality and tree productivity attributes as component planes, spatial patterns between orchards could be observed. In addition, climatic data from regional meteorological stations was associated with the map.