SEARCHING FOR STABILITY In an unstable environment

Gala types are inherently unstable, and reversions are generally noted on most types. The reversion to a poorer colour is not desirable. Consumers do not generally have a good varietal knowledge and colour is often linked to fruit quality. In a study on consumers' preferences of Gala type apples, appearance was the most cited word in the word association test¹. This indicates that the colour of a Gala apple is a major factor in the consumer selection process. Traditionally, Gala is not a very attractive apple, therefore the selection of a good-colour Gala is vey important. In fact, this can be linked directly to the sale of the variety in stores.

SAPO Trust imported various strains of Royal Gala over the years and none were found to be better than locally selected Royal Gala strains. Improvements in selection processes during the late 1990s resulted in local branch mutations from Royal Gala orchards being discovered and developed. Then, Royal Beaut was first discovered by Robert Zulch in the Witzenberg district, Ceres, SA.

The fruit of this well-renowned variety is characterised by its broad red stripes to full-red colour and crisp, sweet creamy flesh. This variety flowers from the first week in October and is ready to harvest towards the end of January.

The selection was deemed a new variety and granted a Plant Breeders Right in 1996 (PBR grant number ZA 961530). It is safe to say that since the discovery of Royal Gala, the discovery of Royal Beaut has been the most significant finding in South African Gala history. Zulch can be described as SA's own Bill Ten Hove; the impact of his finding and contribution to the Gala variety is just as significant as Ten Hove's.

To date, SAPO Trust has distributed over 4 million buds to South African apple growers, with the majority of budwood being delivered between 2012 – 2017 (Figure 1). PlantSA confirms a total of
2 713 560 trees lifted by nurseries (Figure 2). The highest numbers of trees lifted were between 2015 and 2016.

The people

The road to Royal Beaut's success was filled with trials and tribulations. It demanded a lot of time and dedication from various individuals. Three of which played a pivotal role in the rise of the variety's prestige.

Elsa Muller cut her teeth in the deciduous-fruit industry when she joined SAPO Trust in 2009. She made a unique contribution to the sustained success of the Royal Beaut variety by assisting with the budwood selection process and establishing a budwood selection protocol. This ensured high-colouring material was provided to nurseries for the establishment of production trees. After a visit to Italy to observe their selection process, Muller applied what she had learnt to the Royal Beaut budwood selection process back in SA.

Other noteworthy individuals who assisted in the selection process are Paul Stemmet and Lizette Daniels. Stemmet started working at SAPO Trust in 1983 and has been dedicated to plant improvement, and servicing the South African producer for 39 years.

Daniels has been at SAPO Trust for 15 years and is still ensuring fidelity of the budwood harvesting process. Muller refers to Daniels as her "right hand" during the selection process of Royal Beaut. Both Stemmet and Daniels are still assisting SAPO Trust in the production of budwood and SAPO Trust values both these individuals not only for their role in Royal Beaut, but for their crucial role in the production unit of SAPO Trust.

The selection process

The budwood selection process was initially performed by identifying good-colouring trees and whole tree selections. Because whole tree selections of Royal Beaut still resulted in some branches that reverted back to Royal Gala, Muller and Zulch started doing branch selections very early in the season instead. From around 2011 selections were performed per branch to get the best material possible. After the initial selection was performed, the selected trees were re-evaluated and only outstanding trees were marked for budwood harvesting for nursery trees.

The selection team spent many days walking orchards to identify superior-looking Royal Beaut trees. The trees were marked and the budwood harvesting team would cut budwood only from marked trees. The selection process was focused, intense and time-consuming. Blocks had to be walked multiple times to ensure that only the best budwood was identified and selected for propagation of future blocks that would be used for budwood, for nursery trees. This resulted in a continuous selection process even after Royal Beaut was well established as a variety.

Another critical decision that was taken was to not harvest winter budwood from selections or varieties that undergo reversions. One cannot see the colour of the fruit. In winter you're "going in blind", there's no fruit so you cannot reliably cut buds that are associated with high-colouring fruit. Gala is inherently unstable, so even with precise and careful selections, there will always be a small percentage of reversions observed, where a tree will have some branches that do not colour as well. At Wakkerstroom, one can see a block where winter budwood was cut.

Trees produced from winter budwood showed that cutting budwood in the absence of colour selection resulted in trees that were inferior. Their fruit was not uniformly coloured and reversion was high. Hence, budwood was only cut from bearing trees where apples can be seen, so that colour development
is assessed.

At Wakkerstroom, one can view multiple rows of selections that were performed on Royal Beaut, a visual aid to demonstrate why the budwood selection process on Royal Beaut was so important. It also shows the progress made over the years, as well as the pitfalls of not carefully selecting plant material based on fruit colour. One can observe the lack of uniformity over the first few years while the budwood selection protocol was being developed, and as the protocol was being fine-tuned.

The budwood harvesting protocol has matured into one where initial selections are identified, monitored and then only the best colouring branches are used to harvest budwood from, with no winter budwood being cut.

SAPO Trust budwood harvesting protocol

After investigating the various models used by European institutes and nurseries, the established protocol comprised SAPO Trust-specific observations and those from abroad.

1. Budwood will only be cut in mother blocks that are in full production (third leaf onwards) and comply with the specifications as outlined in the South African Certification Scheme.
2. Budwood will only be cut on trees while there is fruit on the trees, and no winter budwood or one-year old trees will be available. Selection of budwood for the purpose of the establishment of new mother blocks will start early in the season to select the best possible budwood from the selected trees.
3. Only shoots near good colouring fruit on the same branch will be cut to
   make sure that budwood is superior
   and stable.
4. No vigorous upright shoots (“waterlote”) from pruning wounds of the previous seasons will be cut. These one-year old shoots appear to be very unstable propagation plant material, unless they are near good-colouring fruit.
5. This protocol makes the collection of budwood very time-consuming and lowers the availability of superior budwood. Nurseries and producers are advised to order their budwood and trees well in advance.
6. Producers and nurseries are also advised that varieties like Royal Beaut that are protected by PBRs, and plant material can only be ordered from the appointed agent, namely SAPO Trust.
7. Producers and nurseries are also advised that despite this protocol and selection process, no warranties can be given on the stability of trees that are being planted, and producers must still be aware of reversions that are going to take place due to the nature of instability of varieties that tend to mutate.

Conclusion

Today, some 11 years later, SAPO Trust has 48 sources (blocks) of Royal Beaut registered at PlantSA and makes up 162 300 trees altogether (see Table 1). Yet not all are utilised due to the stringent selection and budwood harvesting protocol. The SAPO Trust budwood harvesting team still walks through a block at the start of a season and still performs selections to identify if a block can be used. Sometimes this intensive process yields only 500 pieces of budwood, while the order book may reflect 300 000 buds on order.

In 2022 over the course of three weeks, the SAPO Trust budwood harvesting team visited six sites comprising 98 020 trees, and only harvested 85 105 buds. It is still a laborious exercise that is executed by passionate SAPO Trust individuals who are dedicated to plant improvement.

Muller reckons while it was very time-consuming to do early selections on fruit bearing trees, it was worth it for the variety. Which explains continued demand for Royal Beaut in the market place.

"If I can describe Royal Beaut in one word, it would probably be hope. We were always looking and hoping and with a lot of positivity that we will get it [Royal Beaut] to that stage where its more stable."

In 2022, 20 years in, the export market still receives Royal Beaut with open arms (see Table 2). This achievement has come with a lot of time and hard work. The benefit of the selection process is still observed years later when the two varieties are compared (see picture 2).

Though Royal Beaut's PBR has expired, we continue to strive for improvement in plant material, and the strict harvesting protocol is still in place today. To fund the efforts of the budwood harvesting team, a nominal levy is now charged on Royal Beaut trees.

This levy replaces the previous tree royalty charged, and facilitates the creation of value by the continuous improvement of the plant material.