Good news for the pear industry – a project to quantify the water requirements of high-performing pear orchards has been approved for funding by the Water Research Commission. By Engela Duvenage. The project is set to begin in April 2022,…
Growing greener Grannies. By Anna Mouton. “Granny Smith is a very high value apple,” says Graeme Krige, technical adviser at Fruitmax Agri, “but it has to be perfectly green or it’s out. It’s not the case that mild sunburn is…
Control vegetative growth to improve the water-use efficiency of apple orchards. By Engela Duvenage. This is one of the conclusions in a recent report by a team of researchers from the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, the Agricultural Research…
Because orchard performance is rooted in the soil. By Anna Mouton. Most growers would agree that soil conditions can determine the success of an orchard. This is why so much effort goes into soil preparation when planting. But what about…
Maximising returns on investment. By Anna Mouton. “To earn more money, you need to put more apples into the export market,” says Willie Kotze, technical adviser with Dutoit Agri. “You’re not going to win by trying to cut costs.” The…
Growers consider many factors when deciding which cultivars to plant — postharvest performance should be one of these. By Anna Mouton. Planting trends often follow fruit prices, observes Keith Bradley, general manager of Fruitways AgriServices. “People look at their returns…
A new Hortgro study starts buzzing in Western Cape pome- and stone-fruit orchards. By Nanike Esterhuizen. The South African fruit industry faces a challenge: a heavy reliance on honeybees for pollination. With much of the R17 billion deciduous-fruit industry dependent…
The next generation of artificial pollination systems is designed to support crop-load optimisation. By Anna Mouton. Prof. Matthew Whiting is an applied whole-tree physiologist in the Department of Horticulture at Washington State University. He spoke to Fresh Quarterly about artificial…
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…
Success in spring depends on skilfully managing beehives during the rest of the year. By Anna Mouton. It’s easy to forget about bees outside the brief period when self-incompatible fruit trees are flowering. But the delivery of hives is preceded…