Longer Living Orchards

This mod extends the lifespan of all orchard trees in the game. By default they live on average around 8 years. With this mod they live around 20 years on average, making orchard yields more similar to same-sized crop fields over time.

I have tested a 15x4 wheat field next to a 15x4 orchard field (pecans in this case, but they all perform equally), and compared figures over a 25 year period, when the 2nd batch of orchard trees were fully mature again. As you probably know, wheat is one of the better-performing crop types.

Across the 25 years, wheat averaged 408 per year, while pecans averaged 374 per year (which includes the initial two years of 0 yield due to growth; it averaged 406 without those two years). Naturally, these numbers will vary a bit depending on the type of crops in use and the size of the fields, in addition to environmental factors such as weather and distance to barns and homes. However, I'm quite pleased at the improved performance. In addition to orchard fields not looking depleted most of the time, they also perform better now, so it won't feel like such a loss to grow anything besides crops.

Hopefully it works out for you.