Elgin Orchards

Production so far The field-day orchard sent 54.2 tonnes per hectare to the packhouse in 2022, 121.4 in 2023, and 126.2 in 2024, for a lifetime cumulative yield of 301.8 tonnes per hectare. Of this, 74% was graded as EU+ and 7% as EU2 in 2022, and 71% as EU+ and 11% as EU2 in 2023 and 2024. Fruit size peaked at 66–72 mm in all years. Orchard culls were 12% in 2022, 14% in 2023, and 17% in 2024, primarily due to sunburn, which was particularly severe in 2024, recalls farm manager Dirk Meyer. “We had 34 hours above 30 °C in February this year, compared with 22 hours last year. And this year, we had two spells of seven hours above 30 °C.” Shoulder injuries also caused some losses. “Short stems were a problem this year,” said Meyer. “The fruit push each other off – we picked up more than 14 bins of fallen fruit.” Horticulturist Dr Nigel Cook thinks yields of up to 150 tonnes per hectare for the next 15 years could realistically be achieved without sacrificing fruit quality. “I’ve dealt with a few orchards that yield over 200 tonnes per hectare, and fruit size and colour are definitely limited at those yields. The colour is late and poorer,” he says. “We want to achieve 150 tonnes, but with better and better quality over time.” To reach this goal, Cook and Meyer must curb G.778’s vigour and maintain an open canopy that optimises light distribution.

Setting up for success High-quality nursery trees were foundational to the field-day orchard’s strong performance. The block was established with tissue-cultured rootstocks grown on virgin soils. Meyer credits the orchard’s uniformity to tissue-cultured plant material. “The trees were 1.8–2.0 metres with a few side branches, which we left, and we didn’t tip the leaders,” he remembers. “We didn’t touch the trees with secateurs from planting until after the first harvest. We only bent.” Although the tree spacing is narrower than traditional solaxe systems, they are being trained according to solaxe principles. “What we say is, you bend as much as you can, so you can prune as little as possible and then pick as much as you can,” says Cook. Bending started in December in the first leaf. The trees have received rest-breaking treatments from the second leaf, but no other plant-growth regulators have been used. As expected, given the inadequate winter chill of the Elgin Valley, the trees are still a little sparse in their tops. “The tops are always slow to fill in in the warm areas,” says Cook. “So, we’re still bending at the top while already removing branches at the bottom to improve light in the lower canopy.” Even though bending in the first two years is labour-intensive, Meyer points out that minimal bending is needed after this, and the cost of bending is more than outweighed by the yield benefits. Now that the trees have reached their full height, the strategy is to retain solaxe branches with healthy autonomous spurs. Ultimately, Cook wants 10 permanent branches in the bottom and 10 in the top of each tree, with every branch distributed in its own space and not shading other branches. He believes spur quality should be the main deciding factor when choosing whether to renew branches. “A branch can be renewed, but we’re not renewing a third of the tree every year.”

Why bending matters “We started bending shoots when they were 30–50 centimetres long,” says Cook. “We’ve bent everything on these trees to reduce apical dominance and the negative impact of inadequate winter chill.” Apical dominance occurs when a terminal bud suppresses the sprouting of buds lower down on a shoot. The suppressed buds are said to be paradormant – their dormancy is not caused by the environment or factors within the bud but by correlative factors elsewhere in the tree. The natural growth habit of apple branches is acrotonic in that the leader dominates overall, and the terminal bud on each branch dominates buds lower on that branch. Buds in different positions differ in their chill requirement, leading to predictable bud break in spring, sufficient breaks, and a regular branching structure. Insufficient winter chill upsets the pattern, leading to unpredictable bud break and a more polyarchic and basotonic habit. Trees have fewer but stronger branches in the bottom part and more blind wood, especially in the top. “The problems of inadequate winter chill are most probably due to an accentuated apical dominance, and bending is the only tool we have to manipulate apical dominance effectively,” says Cook. “When you bend the shoot, the apex stops dominating.” He explains that bending keeps branches weak and allows laterals to develop. “You get more autonomous spurs, better flowering and fruit set, and fruit size is more or less evenly distributed along the branch. It’s a main tenant of the solaxe system.” The solaxe system was developed in France by Pierre-Éric Lauri and Jean-Marie Lespinasse. After visiting them, Cook implemented it in SA in collaboration with Profs Daantjie Strydom and Gerard Jacobs of the Department of Horticultural Science at Stellenbosch University. “Solaxe doubled the industry’s cartons,” says Cook. “Bending is the trick to making trees bear fruit when the winter chill is inadequate, and in terms of cost, bending is cheap in the bigger scheme of things.”

What comes next? G.778’s vigour is classed as 80–90% of seedling, although it displayed 70% vigour in an industry trial with Fuji. This puts it in the same group as M.793 and MM.109 – and it’s potentially more vigorous than either. “We felt that we were willing to try our luck with G.778 with a weak scion on a low-vigour site,” says Cook. “But I’ve said from day one that I’m nervous about the vigour, and we’ve still got water shoots on these trees even with a yield of 126 tonnes per hectare.” Elgin Orchards has planted very little on G.778, and their newer orchards are mostly on G.202, which has a vigour of 40–50% of seedling, or slightly greater than M.9. Cook has tried G.213 but found that the graft unions tend to break. He is excited about trial results for G.757, which has similar vigour to M.9. For low-potential soils, Elgin Orchards is considering G.890 rather than G.778. And like M.7, G.890 has a vigour of 60% of seedling. “I understand why people are going for G.778 in Elgin because everybody has challenges with weak vigour and poor soils,” comments Cook. “But I think we can grow semi-dwarfing rootstocks like G.202 and G.890 in these conditions.” Meanwhile, the field-day Cripps Red have the buds to produce at least another 120 tonnes next season, having already broken even in the third leaf. “We’re not going to get these yields everywhere, but we need to break even quicker,” says Cook. “If growers can’t break even quicker, then they can’t afford to replant, which means we can’t innovate – change the rootstock, scion, or system. But if they break even in year five, they can afford to make changes.”