Goulburn Valley grower, packer and marketer Jeftomson will manage the new Dazzle® apple in Australia, in its first foray into managed-varieties.
The New Zealand-bred PremA129 variety, fruit from which will be marketed under the name Dazzle, has been licensed to Jeftomson by pipfruit development company Prevar.
Jeftomson General Orchard Manager Brent Reeve said Dazzle was a high-coloured, sweet, firm and juicy apple, with a flavour profile that Australia and Asia had been waiting for.
“Dazzle colours in the heat, stores well, and will be excellent for both domestic and export markets,” he said. “Dazzle is the right apple for us as it suits our conditions in the Goulburn Valley, as well as being suited to colder climate regions”.
PremA129 is a conventional cross of PremA280 (marketed as Sweetie™) and Scired bred by the New Zealand Plant and Food Research breeding program which has produced the varieties behind well-known branded apples Jazz™, Envy™ and Smitten™.
Prevar Commercial Manager Snow Hardy said the company was delighted to have such a reputable and longstanding company as Jeftomson as a licensee and encouraged growers to support them with this new apple variety.
“It is very exciting to roll out such a fantastic new variety to Australian growers,” he said.
Brent said Dazzle would follow Gala in the season, with Dazzle harvest commencing as Gala ended, and early results from trial trees had been very good.
“It crops well with consistent yields of 80 tonne,” he said. “We had fruit on trial trees in the Goulburn Valley last season that showed us great results. It coloured well in the heat of the region. Furthermore, Dazzle had pressures of 8.5 to 9 and brix of 16 and 17.”
Brent said Jeftomson now had 10,500 trees in the ground and would be planting 20,000 next winter. A further 50,000 trees would be planted in subsequent years and plans were to licence selected growers from all growing regions in Australia.
“We will initially be capping Dazzle to 220 hectares,” he said. “Trees will be available from ANFIC nurseries in 2020. We plan to have the first fruit on supermarket shelves in 2022 and by 2030 are expecting to have 700,000 cartons.”
Managed varieties are proving popular with growers attracted by the higher returns delivered by a managed program of volume control, high quality standards, grower support and marketing. This year’s Australian Crop Forecast showed a 28 per cent rise in the volumes of “other apples, inc. club varieties’.
In New Zealand and globally outside Australia, Dazzle is licensed to Fruitcraft NZ Ltd, a marketing collaboration between three of NZ’s largest growers Mr Apple, Bostock New Zealand and Freshmax. Jeftomson can export globally in conjunction with Fruitcraft.
“We at Jeftomson believe that Dazzle will be a great addition to our export program, and we plan to work with Fruitcraft on a coordinated worldwide export program,”
For more information;
Brent Reeve
Tel: +61 429 874 160
Email: breeve@jeftomson.com