Fruit & Nuts

The Lingenfelder brothers have made significant changes to production methods and orchard management since joining their family’s apple and pear farming operation in the Western Cape’s Overberg region. They spoke...

Gerhard Meyer has achieved export success with his top-quality pomegranates. Now he and a group of other Klein Karoo farmers have established a brand specifically for pomegranates grown in this...

For thousands of years, Southern African communities have used the bark, leaves, fruit and kernels of the marula tree for their medicinal and nutritional properties. Martin Rust spoke to Magda...

Mahela Group is a third-generation farming business in Limpopo. Eddie Vorster, director of the company’s citrus division, spoke to Magda du Toit about the strategies and farming practices they follow...

Allesbeste Nursery, established in the 1980s, has been expanded many times. Yet the end is still not in sight, according to Zander Ernst, the company’s director of marketing and production....

Since blueberry cultivation requires a lot of water, making every drop count is key to the sector’s survival in a water-stressed country like South Africa. Farmer Wikus Strauss spoke to...

Tru-Cape Fruit Marketing, South Africa's largest exporter of apples and pears, hosted a media visit to the Langkloof to meet with its producers. Two of these farmers spoke to Glenneis...

The macadamia industry is making inroads into what have traditionally been sugar cane areas. From Malelane in Mpumalanga to Pongola in KwaZulu-Natal, cane is being replaced by nuts as farmers...

After the failure of local green kiwifruit production in the 1980s, a new group of farmers is hopeful that golden kiwis will become a South African success story. One such...

The yields of mature pecan nut orchards are failing to reach optimal levels, and concerned producers have been searching high and low to find answers, investigating everything from foliar applications...

Mpumalanga-based granadilla breeder Darryn Stoltz has developed a delicious new passion fruit cultivar that offers several advantages over previous varieties. One of these is longer shelf life, enabling the export...

The humble farmers’ market has gone from being a place where farmers can sell their produce to a platform that strengthens, educates and enriches communities. For food activists, it also...

Looking for a different crop to grow in the Western Cape? At the Subtropical and Minor Crop Workshop held last year, Glenneis Kriel spoke to a number of experts about...

Plan, execute, control and verify. These are the four elements that constitute the irrigation approach of Indigo Fruit Farming in Mpumalanga, where every drop of water is used to its...

According to Errol Hewson, director of Riverside Kat River Farm, the relatively unknown Orri mandarin cultivar is shaping the future of the enterprise’s citrus production.

The Zulch family of Wakkerstroom farm won the prize for the highest average income per hectare of apples in the 2020 Ceres Fruit Grower Awards. Fourie Zulch spoke to Glenneis...

The Agricultural Research Council is undertaking various trials aimed at making guava production more profitable. Glenneis Kriel spoke to Salomie Willemse and Chris Smith, experts involved in the programme.

Pecan farming is still in its infancy in South Africa, but with the global demand for nuts increasing, more producers are seeing opportunities to diversify their farms with pecans. Lindi...

Faced with wilting, unproductive avocado trees, Limpopo farmer Christa Rebel decided to replace them with another crop. In the meantime, however, she planted strawberries on the orchard floor. Then, serendipitously,...

Achieving yield stability over many years is the golden standard in mango farming. But this is easier said than done: success requires a keen understanding of the demands of mango...