Why is there so much variability? By Anna Mouton. Inconsistent fruit quality and ripening is the bane of apple growers everywhere. How is one supposed to harvest at optimum maturity when there is so much variation on the same tree?…
Do chill units tell us anything? By Anna Mouton. The idea behind chill models is to figure out what trees will do in spring. Will they wake up smartly and crack on with flowering? Or will they linger over bud-break…
The fundamental flaws of chill models Why they don’t work well in South Africa. By Anna Mouton. Chill models matter — their outputs have real-life implications. Growers in areas with mild winters depend on chill models for the management of…
The challenges of calculating chill. By Anna Mouton. The amount of winter chill a deciduous fruit tree receives will affect how it wakes up in spring. Insufficient chill results in trees that linger over flowering and foliation — growers will…
How it works and why it matters. By Anna Mouton. The ancestors of the apples we grow today probably came from some freezing mountain on the borders of Kazakhstan — not from the Garden of Eden. These trees evolved winter…
A recent Hortgro-funded project focused on how climate change will impact growers in key production regions. By Jorisna Bonthuys. Climate change poses a significant threat to the sustainability of the pome- and stone-fruit industries, according to Prof. Stephanie Midgley, Climate…