Cape Fire™: new deeply red pear impresses during difficult season

Just over a decade after Warm Bokkeveld pear farmer Henri du Plessis noticed a deep, maroon-red pear in a Forelle orchard, the new cultivar has been registered as the Cape Fire™ bi-coloured pear - a pear that is harvested at the very end of the season, two weeks after the Forelle harvest.

The Cape Fire™ is easily distinguished from other bi-coloured pears by its maroon colour, which will be its main selling point. The first test shipments of last season to Germany and the UK whetted the appetite of two supermarkets requesting exclusive volumes this year. And obviously, with a colour this intense, the large-sized pear would have high potential in the Far East.

“The packout percentage is much higher than with Forelle,” explains Gert Marais, category manager of apples and pears at Delecta Fruit that will handle the marketing of the fruit. “In terms of colour, 80 or 90% is easily obtainable, compared with 50 to 60% with Forelle and 30% Vermont Beaut in the Warm Bokkeveld area. With Cape Fire™, you can reduce the percentage of Vermont Beaut on the tree and get more class 1 cartons per hectare. Vermont Beaut is the green Forelle sometimes found on the inside of the tree, but if you look at these Cape Fire™ orchards you’d be hard pressed to find any green pears. Forelle loses colour in this area during high temperatures towards the end of the season.”

The small percentage – less than 5% - of pears not coloured enough to be marketed as Cape Fire™, will be marketed as Dpp1 (Du Plessis Pear 1) pears, the name under which the pear is registered. The Cape Fire™ trademark has now been registered in the EU, the USA, South Africa, Argentine, Chile, Vietnam and China; TopFruit manages the intellectual property.

At Elandsrivier Boerdery, the farm where the pear was discovered and where the oldest orchard is growing, the Cape Fire™ is consistently larger than Forelle, with less variation in size, even in what is a difficult year because of drought.

The Warm Bokkeveld has a harsh climate, easily going above 35°C, but the pear handles the heat and sun intensity well. Finding the right micro climate for production of this low chilling requirement pear, will be important to maintain the quality and colour development, Gert Marais notes. 

“The eating sensation is less astringent than Forelle because of the higher sugar content,” he continues. “We haven’t done long term CA storage with this yet, but my prediction is you’ll be able to keep it for six months, or even longer. Without CA storage you can keep it in cold storage until week 30. It doesn’t go soft easily and the colour doesn’t change, you can’t really see a yellow background. Four years ago we did intensive trial work, harvesting from weeks ten to fourteen and stored it for different periods of time. The results showed after eight weeks in storage that fruit harvested in week 14 had the best eating quality. This year we’re going to repeat those trials. As for Smartfresh, that depends on how long you want to keep it. I’m of the opinion that you don’t have to Smartfresh it.”

René Nicolaï, Belgian nurseryman of the eponymous fruit tree nursery in Alken, attended the Cape Fire™ field day at Elandsrivier Boerdery. He sees great potential in the cultivar. “The big challenge in the pear world is to find the first good, red pear variety. There are other varieties which are red at fruit set but the colour goes away as it ripens but with this one the colour seems more stable. The only question is: can we grow this in Belgium?” His nursery has established Cape Fire™ trees but they haven’t yet started bearing fruit.

For more information:

Gert Marais

Tel: +27 21 860 3999

Email: gert@delecta.co.za

Corné Grundlingh

Tel: +27 21 874 1033

Email: corneg@topfruit.co.za