A changing strategy for a changing world. By Marinda Louw Coetzee. Crop protection is changing due to increasingly stringent market requirements for ethical fruit production, as well as due to changes in orchard structure and ecology. The Orchard of the…
Is fumigation the only option? By Anna Mouton. Apple orchards have a limited lifespan, and sites for apple orchards are finite, so new apple orchards are regularly established where old ones have been removed. These new orchards are at risk…
It takes an ecosystem to grow a tree. By Anna Mouton. We humans often describe a clean floor as one you can eat off. But a clean orchard floor starves soil organisms. Cover crops can boost diversity both above and…
The focus shifts to sustainability. By Anna Mouton. Agricultural production has grown exponentially for nearly two centuries. Outputs more than tripled in the period 1960–2015 — the achievements of the so-called Green Revolution of the 1960s are so significant that…