An interview with Christo Strydom

Christo Strydom of specialist pear-packhouse Wolfpack is unusual in the South African deciduous-fruit industry because he focuses mainly on pears. He spoke to Fresh Quarterly about the challenges and opportunities facing our industry. By Anna Mouton.

Q. You started in the industry in 1990. How has pear production changed since then?

A. There have been many positive changes. There is definitely a big improvement in tonnes per hectare — more consistent high yields. I think this can be ascribed to better production practices and better clonal rootstocks.

Thirty years ago, many people still planted trees on pear seedling rootstocks. Then the BP series of South African-bred pear rootstocks was released, and we had all the advantages of clonal rootstocks.

With Quince BA29 and C51, we now have the opportunity to make more productive trees of certain cultivars. But we still need to develop more precocious Pyrus rootstocks as well because some pear cultivars are not compatible with quince rootstocks.

In terms of pest management, the start of mating disruption against codling moth in the early nineties was revolutionary — previously we were basically spraying with organophosphates every two weeks from bloom.

I also think that the Forelle research made a big difference — the whole FEMA [Forelle Early Market Access] programme. It enabled us to be in the market much earlier because we no longer needed the eight-week storage before shipping.

The use of ethylene inhibitors has been an interesting change. FEMA is built on ethylene inhibitors, but we also use them in longer-term controlled-atmosphere storage to maintain a better background colour.

Q. What cultivars are being planted in South Africa?

A. Packham’s Triumph has always been the backbone of our industry because it can be sold in many markets and has relatively low production costs. In the years where it gives you good yields and pack-outs, it does well. But I don’t think you’ll find anyone who still has an appetite to plant Packham’s.

I also don’t think there’s a place for the old Williams’ Bon Chrétien. You need a strong processing industry to make it economically viable.

If I look at what is currently being planted, it tends to be blushed pears — the new Rosemarie selection is very exciting. South Africa has positioned itself very strongly in the production and marketing of blushed pears. I think this has given us a competitive advantage, especially in Europe and the United Kingdom.

When a grower in our group wants to plant pears, I recommend Forelle on a quince rootstock. And if he says he has too much Forelle, I respond that he has too much of the wrong Forelle — trees on BP rootstocks that are not performing.

Q. Is a lack of new cultivars holding the industry back?

A. Pears are a bit of a dinosaur when compared to other fresh deciduous fruit. They are not dynamic when it comes to new cultivars.

If you look at all the new cultivars in especially apples and plums, you can see it as good or bad. It can be good because there is always something new to interest the consumer. But it can be bad for growers when they make a huge capital investment only to discover that their product is unwanted after four or five years.

With pears being a dinosaur, you are competing with an old-fashioned fruit in a new world where people eat fancy fruits like berries and cherries. And all you have to offer is a 250-year-old Williams’ Bon Chrétien or a 130-year-old Packham’s. The biggest change during my career has been the rise of blushed pears, starting with Forelle, which is also a very old cultivar.

Everything indicates that pear consumers in Europe are ageing. We need to attract young people, and we can only do that with the look of our fruit. At the moment, people who buy pears, buy them for their taste, not their looks — we’re selling an eating experience. But even though the eating experience is important, your contact with the consumer starts with what they see.

We need to get into that game of catching the consumer’s eye. But there are also risks with new cultivars, such as astringency and sensitivity to rub marks. One of the reasons why fully red pears have struggled to get off the ground is their sensitivity to rub marks.

Q. What other factors affect pear consumption?

A. When pears are harvested, they are physiologically mature, but they are not ready to eat. And if a consumer puts them in the fruit bowl, the pears never ripen because pears are very lazy generators of ethylene, and they need a cold shock to get them started.

Cultivars differ with regard to their sensitivity to that cold shock. Summer pears, like Williams’ Bon Chrétien, may only need 5–7 days at -0.5 ºC, while Forelle requires eight weeks. But the principle is that consumers don’t know how to ripen pears for a good eating experience.

Unfortunately, if you sell pears as ready-to-eat, they need to be eaten immediately. And their skins are very sensitive to handling or rub marks, and the ripe fruit shows bruising very clearly — which looks unattractive.

Q. Why did the Russian invasion of Ukraine have such a huge impact on our pear industry?

A. Russia has become an increasingly important market for our pears in the last few years, and suddenly the rug was pulled from under us. We didn’t have alternative markets for the pears we were sending to Russia.

Unfortunately, the typical consumer in South Africa, and the rest of Africa, rather buys apples than pears. We don’t sell nearly the same volume of pears as apples in Africa. And I think we are still too dependent on western European markets, which makes it difficult for us when they have large harvests of Conference and Abate Fetel.

We have had other bad years since I started working in the industry, but no one foresaw the events of 2022. And if you look at news reports of the increases in the price of gas in Europe, I don’t think people will be eating many pears — they will be sticking to the basics.

I do want to add that the pear industry has always survived bad years and even come back stronger after setbacks. So I am optimistic about the future of this industry.

Image: Christo Strydom [left] and Henk Rossouw at Buchuland.

Supplied by Anna Mouton.