Cape’s fruit farmers plan for a dry season

AS THE DROUGHT afflicting the Western Cape and parts of the Eastern Cape shows no sign of abating, deciduous fruit farmers are considering contingency plans for the coming season, according to deciduous fruit farmers’ organisation Hortgro.

“Growing fruit trees is a long-term investment, with orchards bearing fruit over multiple seasons. It has been one of the driest winters in recent history, with unprecedented low dam levels and pressure on the water infrastructure servicing Cape Town and other municipal areas in the region,” Hortgro spokesperson Jacques du Preez said.

Fruit farmers, who were reliant on irrigation water to produce their crops, apprehensively awaited rain to fill up their dams. The water situation differed between regions – with some growers reporting enough water to at least see through most of the summer, while others reported only fractions of the required amounts of water available for the coming season.

Hortgro recently presented an irrigation seminar to equip producers with the tools and strategies to mitigate the impact of the drought as best as possible. Since the future scenario of a drying climate required that all new plantings were highly efficient, the seminar revisited the basic principles of irrigation design and planning.

Stages during the season when trees might be more or less sensitive to drought stress or when conditions allowed water saving were identified, while mulching, restricting irrigation to the root zone, and netting were discussed, he said.

An encompassing drought strategy was presented by a Ceres fruit grower. The strategy involved ranking and allocating water to orchards according to profitability. This would entail optimal irrigation of highly profitable orchards, restriction of water allocation to less profitable orchards, and the removal of unproductive orchards.

Strategy

The strategy would be reassessed during monthly water budget meetings. In line with the drought strategy, many growers had brought forward their plans to remove older, less productive orchards over the next couple of years to stretch the water they had as far as possible. Others had decided to remove all the fruit from trees.

In the end, the allocation of water would be an economic decision, with the most productive long-term crops getting the advantage over lower-yielding orchards or short-term crops, such as onions and potatoes.