December 2024 / January 2025

“Ons doel is die konsekwente produksie van vrugte wat die beste pryse sal behaal,” het Craig Hornblow gesê. Hy is ’n stigterslid van AgFirst en het byna 40 jaar se ervaring in hortologie met ’n spesifieke belangstelling in hoëdigtheidappelboorde. Die uitdaging is dat vrugkwaliteit en opbrengste beide binne ’n blok en binne individuele bome varieer.

Oak Valley opted for the relatively unknown G.778 when establishing a 1.2-hectare Granny Smith orchard on an old pear site in 2021. “It’s not the best soil, so we decided to try G.778,” says Neville van Buuren, General Manager: Fruit Division at Oak Valley. The Grannies and a double-leader Bigbucks orchard also planted in 2021, were Oak Valley’s first on G.778.

Bigbucks established at 3.5 x 1.0 metres was the only M.9 orchard featured during the 2022 Hortgro pome-fruit field day. The 0.4-hectare block was planted in 2018.

A cumulative yield of 300 tonnes per hectare is one of the milestones in an orchard’s life – top performers achieve this by the fifth or sixth leaf. But a 2022 Hortgro field-day block at Elgin Orchards has expanded our conception of the possible by surpassing the 300-tonne benchmark in the fourth leaf.

Die 2022 Hortgro kernvrugvelddagboord by De Rust is nege hektaar Lady in Red op G.778 wat teen 3.5 x 1.25 meter in 2020 gevestig is. Die kumulatiewe opbrengs teen vierde blad was 206.5 ton per hektaar. “Ons mikpunt was 200 ton per hektaar teen die vyfde jaar,” sê produksiebestuurder Jacques van Dyk.

Four apple orchards in Elgin were showcased at the 2022 Hortgro Pome-fruit Field Day – three on G.778 and one on M.9. They were featured in the Oct/Nov ‘22 SAFJ. The following series of articles revisits them to learn how these orchards are coming along. For more on apple rootstocks, visit www.freshquarterly.co.za to download a free copy of Hortgro’s technical magazine for growers.

What is soil health? People debate the details, but health basically means the same whether we’re thinking about our soils or ourselves – it’s a measure of functionality. Healthy table-grape growers get up every morning to work toward their next harvest, while sick growers stay in bed. Healthy soils work every day to sustain life on earth, while sick soils must be chronically medicated with chemical inputs such as fertilisers and pesticides. Sheila Storey should know. She founded Nemlab in 1987 to diagnose nematode problems in crops

A grape bunch contains berries and a rachis – two dissimilar tissues susceptible to different postharvest issues. A waxy coating protects berries from water loss, whereas the unprotected rachis is vulnerable to drying and browning. The rachis can also freeze below minus 1.0 °C, whereas berries freeze at minus 2.0–minus 3.0 °C. Grapes are non-climacteric fruit. Berries have a low respiration rate and, therefore, a low sensitivity to physiological disorders but a high sensitivity to senescence. Pre-optimally harvested grapes won’t ripen, but overmature grapes are more likely to suffer postharvest decay and internal browning. “Soluble solids are a measure of acceptability to the consumer – very high values could occur at a senescent stage of the tissue,” says Dr Juan Pablo Zoffoli, a postharvest physiologist in the Faculty of Agronomy and Natural Systems of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile.

Traditional viticulture is about managing a vineyard rather than individual grapevines. Practices such as irrigation, fertilisation, crop protection, and pruning are applied uniformly across a block. “I’m not saying it’s wrong,” remarks Prof Carlos Poblete-Echeverría, “but we want to move to something new to help growers improve.” Poblete-Echeverría is an associate professor in the Department of Viticulture and Oenology at Stellenbosch University (SU) and the Digital Agriculture Research Group Coordinator at the South African Grape and Wine Research Institute. His research focuses on developing and utilising new digital tools in viticulture and agriculture. He is interested in digital viticulture, defined as the application of new technologies to manage the spatial and temporal variability within vineyards, providing growers with valuable information to support optimal management.