© Lone Tree Farms"Our advantage of being the only suppliers of freshly-harvested apples will be very short this year," reckons Johan Naudé, chairperson of the Hoogland Vrugtekwekersvereniging. On his farm, Saldanha Apples in Bethlehem, Free State, the first Gale Gala blocks have coloured up for harvesting.
"In the Free State, we had enough summer rain and no significant frost incidents during flowering, and everyone reports a handsome crop," he says. Usually, they have the apple market to themselves for a week or ten days - this year, perhaps not even that. In the Western Cape, he says, they're hearing of very early Royal Gala being harvested, and in the Langkloof, reports are that the drought is resulting in early ripening.
A minute fraction of South Africa's apples are grown in the Free State and Mpumalanga on a pick-pack-ship model with no apple storage. "As soon as the first apples arrive on the market, the price quickly drops," Naudé says.
"With regards to pricing, we are seeing similar opening prices to last year, which are good prices, but last year tended to drop quite quickly," says Doug Osler of Lone Tree Farms in Fouriesburg, Free State. "We have seen some growth in prices, particularly on the new genetic strains, which essentially give a better packout and therefore better return per hectare."
Apple input costs rise faster than domestic selling price
Exports to the Middle East and Bangladesh are important, while trade to India has significantly increased since the easing of the shipping protocol. A large percentage of Free State apples are going to the Far East, with the biggest customer being China, Naudé says.
"The export price has slightly increased, and the local price has increased more. But input costs have gone up more than the selling price on a percentage basis. The approach to profitable apple farming has become to achieve the highest class 1 percentage of the tree as possible," Naudé says. "The local market, as the only approach to marketing, is not profitable anymore as the volumes supplied are too high and prices drop too much."
© Lone Tree FarmsSouth African cultivars Bingo Gala and Bigbucks Gala at Lone Tree Farms, Fouriesburg
The shift to the more reproductive M9 rootstock over the past decade has been a game-changer in the Free State, stabilizing the volumes.
While there is a large overlap between the cultivars planted in the interior of the country (where temperatures through the year remain cooler and more constant than in the Western Cape Boland), the differences include the small role played by Golden Delicious, Fuji and Cripps Red cultivars in the Free State.
"We have a gap between Granny Smith, which is also our main pollinator, and Pink Lady. There are some blocks of Fuji left around here, but we've found it doesn't colour as well as in the Western Cape, and there are problems in terms of cooling, so we don't plant Fuji much around here. This leaves a gap of a few weeks before we get going with the early Pink Lady," Naudé says. Many blocks of Rosy Glow and Lady-in-Red have been added, while a stalwart like Cripps Red produces well in their region, "but we tend to not get good prices".
Top Red performs very well in their region, better than in the Western Cape, he remarks, and it is quick to harvest since it colours up so dependably (even though it is a bit of an alternate bearer). They have to be careful not to oversupply the market with Top Red.
Naudé observes that the establishment of new orchards is approached in a different way than before. "Farmers have become a bit more discerning. In the past, we all thought to plant in the coldest sections of the farm, typically the low-lying areas where cold air pools. Now we're looking at the highest parts of the farm when establishing orchards."
For more information:
Johan Naudé
Hoogland Vrugtekwekersvereniging
Email: [email protected]
