Crops

I paid an early morning visit to the Joburg Market recently. It was an icy Tuesday, and the place was hectic.

The infamous cutworm occurs in all vegetable crops, including onions, yet still seems to catch farmers by surprise.

When Stefan and Anné Pretorius established Katlego Sitrus more than a decade ago, they decided to re-evaluate everything they knew about farming. This involved introducing new technology to improve production processes.

Those who believe that market agents are no longer relevant remind us that more than 50 years ago, when supermarkets started buying directly from farmers, markets and market agents did nothing about it.

For small-scale mushroom farmers in South Africa, production can be a challenge. But Wilmaré Lotz of Boland Mushrooms succeeded in doubling production in her first year as manager. Specialising in button mushrooms, the business employs 36 members of the local community and produces approximately 6,5t of mushrooms a week.

For the small-scale onion grower, it pays to stay in production as long as possible in order to satisfy a local rural market.

Four years ago, the Imasa introduced an award for a market, market agency or fresh produce-related business that had excelled in customer services.

Farming granadillas can be profitable, but growers should realise that the crop requires intensive management and significant capital investment. Wilma den Hartigh visited Kosie Eloff’s farm in Limpopo to find out how to grow this crop successfully.

Fertilising vegetables is not like baking a cake, where we get a consistent result as long as we follow the recipe. With vegetables, we have to deal with different soils and take into account the elements already in the soil.

In days gone by, it was common practice for a youngster to work alongside his father or uncle in a market agency and learn the trade in that way.

Many small-grain farmers in the Southern Cape have added brassicas in the form of canola to their crop rotation programmes. Jose de Kock talked to Glenneis Kriel about how he is taking this a step further by including vegetable brassicas, such as broccoli and cauliflower, in the rotation cycle.

Some 16 years ago, Johannes Joubert introduced canola to his crop rotation system on the family farm Kweekkraal. This not only contributed to the health of his soil, but led to his winning the Protein Research Foundation’s Southern Cape canola yield competition with a yield of 2,41t/ha.

Peter Da Rocha farms cauliflower, broccoli and lettuce near Delmas in Mpumalanga. The operation's focus on cultivar selection for better production efficiency has had a significant impact on the business’s profitability.

Peter Nicholson of Roselands farm near Richmond in KwaZulu-Natal believes organic farming can be used to sustainably feed the world. He shares his vision with Lloyd Phillips.

‘Ugly produce’, it seems, is finding its way onto retail shelves around the world.

An alternative to the traditional seedbed method for transplants is to use seedling trays. One advantage of this is that you can place the trays in a warmer environment if you farm in a very cold area.

With citrus orchards that extend for more than 60km along the Eastern Cape’s Sundays River Valley, Sitrusrand is one of the largest producers in the area, and exports to many countries around the world.

To many farmers and market agents, price is all that matters. Of course price is important, but these days there’s a lot more to the equation.

I’ve met a few senior people in the fresh-produce sector who don’t know what plant breeders’ rights (PBRs) are.

Jacques Beukes is a table grape farmer in the Western Cape, and is always searching for new ways in which to expand and improve his business. Since joining the family farm in 2006, the operation has shifted from seeded to seedless grapes, and turnover has increased by 900%.