Crops

Crop chemicals are expensive and if herbicide spraying isn't optimised, you get poor value for money, writes Bill Kerr.

We need to take certain precautions when growing cauliflower that aren't as important for cabbages or broccoli, writes Bill Kerr.

Talking to market agents these days can be quite depressing. In the past, there were always people you could rely on to give you a more positive view of current...

Growing vegetables involves multi-tasking. I covered the importance of getting the timing right in my previous article.

Stephan Fourie, who produces potatoes near Frankfort in the Free State, believes that three pillars support success in farming: an excellent product, sound management and good labour relations.

Sugarcane farmer Brad O’Neill won the 2015 Nedbank Eston Show’s Farmer of the Year and Best Milling Cane award in the category 10 000t to 20 000t delivered in the...

While working for a large seed company, I once had a chat with one of the directors, a financial fundi who contributed to steering the company in the right direction.

Vito Rugani always used to say, “Remember the power of the brand!” A legend on the markets,

I’m not privy to the inside story on the strikes experienced in the fruit sector recently. According to what I’ve read, Dutoit Group in the Western Cape and Umbhaba Bananas...

Fruit farmers in the Ceres Valley will have to manage their water strategically this season, as parts of the region received less than half the annual rainfall. Louis Reynolds of...

Growing vegetables is highly competitive, demanding and arguably the most difficult branch of agriculture in which to succeed, especially for new entrants.

The farm Matroozefontein has the most westerly citrus orchards and table grape vineyards in Southern Africa. In this arid area, farming under nets has proved a success.

The move to stock ‘almost perfect’ fruit and vegetables has for many years been an obsession in supermarkets abroad.

Previously, I described how the high mineral content of borehole water could cause mineral build-up on leaf surfaces, with consequences for the application of chemicals.

All the production processes in the Uys family’s mixed farming enterprise, from grazing management to cash crops and cover crop production, occur in rotation to benefit one another as well...

I’ve often written in this column about how stimulating the fresh produce sector can be.

Here are some guidelines for growing vegetables under drought conditions.

Fresh produce markets have an interesting history. Go back more than 150 years and you’ll find a person called the market master who worked for the local municipality and also...

Western Cape fruit farmer Aat Hoekstra (85) recently received the South African fruit industry’s OSH Reinecke Industry Leader Award for 2015. The British Journal of Fresh Produce has also referred...

Just about every farmer would agree that crop rotation is a good thing – and the more diverse the crops in the rotation, the better.