Getting the best out of pear orchards

GA Erasmus en Seuns Boerdery in the Western Cape Overberg won the award for the best income per hectare for pears in this year's Two-a-Day Awards Ceremony. George Erasmus and Nico Ferreira spoke to Glenneis Kriel about the farm's pear production strategy.

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Over the past five years, GA Erasmus and Seuns Boerdery in Villiersdorp, in the Western Cape Overberg, has won the Two-a-Day award for the highest income per hectare with pears four times. This year it was with an average income of R363 993/ ha. The company also won the Tru-Cape award for the highest income per bearing hectare.

When you ask owner George Erasmus to what he ascribes his success with pears, he wholeheartedly attributes it to the inputs and support of his production adviser, Nico Ferreira, of Two-a-Day’s Fruitmax Agri.

“I merely follow Nico’s advice. He had been assisting our farm long before I joined the business in 2012,” Erasmus says, and with that directs the conversation to Ferreira.

He, in turn, says that pear income per hectare greatly depends on the consistent production of good quality fruit. Erasmus’s target is to produce 60t of export quality fruit each year.

Orchards can be pushed to produce higher volumes, but Ferreira cautions that this would have a negative impact on fruit sizes, which in turn would lead to fewer pears being big enough for exports, and lead to alternate bearing. If, for instance, you produced 120t/ha this year, you might end up with only 12t/ha in the next year.

BIG TREES 

But how does Erasmus achieve consistent quality? Ferreira explains that it starts with the creation of “large pear trees” through the use of healthy, strong plant material on vigorous rootstocks, such as BP1.

The trees are trained to a modified central leader to ensure good light penetration at all levels. They are placed on a four-wire trellis for support and to get good tree height. The aim is to create a tree that is 4m high and 3m wide, says Ferreira.