Tru-Cape plants SA’s oldest pear in its heritage orchard
Managing director Roelf Pienaar said that for Tru-Cape, remembering and restoring the early genetic material that forms today’s R6 billion industry, is a responsibility the company takes on with pride. “Our apples today are redder, more blemish-free and far sweeter strains than the plant material our industry began with, all those years ago”, he says.
Tru-Cape asked Stephanie Botha, a representative of Freshmark, the fruit and vegetable division for The Shoprite Group, to plant the Winter Saffron Pear in recognition of that group’s more than a million purchased cartons a year.
At the event, Tru-Cape’s Quality Assurance Manager Henk Griessel read the extract from Jan van Riebeeck’s diary that records the picking of the Wijnappel in Dutch while Anthony Rawbone-Viljoen, a director of Tru-Cape and decedent of Sir Antonie Viljoen who started Oak Valley in 1898, read the English translation.
Buks Nel, Tru-Cape’s Varietal Expert and co-author with Griessel of Early Apples At The Cape, a book about the heritage varietals, said that the Winter Saffron, the oldest pear tree south of the Sahara, still living in The Company Gardens, Cape Town, was picked in South Africa on the 19th of April 1665, 350 years ago.
“Thanks to the journals of people like François Valentjn who visited the Cape in 1685 and again in 1714 we know the Winter Saffron pear thrived. In 1855 the tree was again described, this time by a Russian visitor. Nel, who made the tree that Tru-Cape planted from a cutting of the original tree, says that the Winter Saffron is a largish pear with a relatively long, slender neck. Although Van Riebeeck brought the tree with him from Holland, records from 1485 list the pear coming from Italy to France.
Dr Annalien Dalton, an apple grower and Programme Manager for Radio Helderberg, baked apple pies for the event with fruit grown in the Heritage Orchard. She said that in early recipes the flour and water pie crust was not eaten, but used as a cooking medium to contain the apples. She remarked that aside from today’s fruit being far more cosmetically pleasing, the skins of the early varieties were so tough they required long cooking and probably had to be peeled before eating.
Pienaar says that Apples In The Early Days At The Cape, tracks the history of mostly forgotten varieties. One of the challenges the authors experienced was the paucity of readily available information about historic plantings.
He explained that when they discovered how few records of apple varieties planted in the Cape existed, they became aware of the overwhelming responsibility to preserve the knowledge and to ensure that when future generations look back to this century, they will have excellent records of the fruit we enjoyed.
The research, over a two-year period, led the authors to interview older growers who might have remembered varieties that are no longer propagated. “We found the best records in Jan van Riebeeck’s diary and in other documents we sourced from the VOC/Dutch East India Company in Holland which still maintains an office,” says Buks Nel explaining, “we owe a debt of thanks to people like Van Riebeeck, who left us with meticulous notes where, in fact, he recorded when he picked the first apples at the Cape. Then there was François Valentijn, a local church minister in the 1720’s, who made copious notes on horticulture at the Cape. After Valentijn there was a gap of about 180 years before the excellent correspondent and nurseryman, H.E.V. Pickstone, appeared on the scene. Henk Griessel says that on the 17th of April 1662 Jan van Riebeeck made this historic entry in his diary: “Heavy drizzle in the morning and a strong north-westerly wind blowing in from the sea. Today the first two ripe Dutch apples were picked in the Company’s nursery garden. They came from a little tree no more than 1.5 meters. This type of apple is known as a Wijnappel.” Henk says that the first apple weighed between 165g and 180g. “It was a historic day and date to be remembered by every South African apple grower. We hope that our replanting of the Wijnappel and others will be seen to be as significant in years to come.”