Fruit & Nuts

South Africa’s relatively young macadamia industry has a long way to go to establish optimal farming practices and efficiencies. However, with nut prices falling, producers need to focus on cost savings that will balance inputs with output. Lindi Botha reports on key areas that macadamia farmers should be paying attention to.

Dragon fruit production in South Africa is growing, thanks to increasing demand from Northern Hemisphere countries.

Soaring energy and labour costs have sparked research into new production practices in the fruit industry. Calla du Toit, procurement manager at Tru-Cape, spoke to Glenneis Kriel about these developments.

Three years ago, few would have foreseen that blueberry prices would plunge by more than 50%, forcing many investors to the brink of collapse. Berry farmer Luan Swart of Mpumalanga explained his strategies for weathering the storm to Lindi Botha.

Limpopo farmers Kosie and Manie Eloff, faced with the need to re-establish their avocado orchards, decided to conduct a multiyear experiment comparing the yields of trees planted on ridged and level soil surfaces. They discussed their methods and results with Lindi Botha.

Blueberries are a challenging crop to cultivate, as the plants don’t readily absorb key nutrients, and the berries can therefore vary in flavour, quality and size. With an increasingly picky market, farmers need to optimise plant nutrition to obtain a consistent crop that commands high prices. Lindi Botha spoke to Dr David Marks.

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 to Glenneis Kriel about their techniques, precision-farming technologies, and yield increases.

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 area, promising substantial employment and attracting government support. He spoke to Glenneis Kriel about the project.

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 du Toit about how his family is exploiting this multi-faceted resource, which occurs naturally on their farm in northern Namibia.

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 to achieve their considerable success.

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. Magda du Toit asked him about the history of Allesbeste and its pioneering efforts to improve South Africa’s avocado 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 Lindi Botha about his methods.

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 Kriel about the techniques they use to overcome production challenges.

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 hope to capitalise on better returns from the market. Is this the boon they have been waiting for?

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 producer, Peter Nicholson, spoke to Susan Marais about the sector and its ambitions.

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 to soil management. The latest indications are that the solution seems to lie in the trees’ roots.

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 of better-quality fruit.

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 represents a means to take control of what they eat.

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 the fruits highlighted at the event.

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 full potential. Farm manager Willem Kieviet spoke to Lindi Botha about his methods of irrigating to achieve the best crop yields.