The oldest plant improvement organization in South Africa, celebrating its fiftieth year last year, over the past few months, presented new cultivars to the industry: the French-bred Delwilmor pear, an improvement on Packham's Triumph whose first commercial crop yielded 50 tonnes per hectare by the third year.
Right: Royal Beaut apples
A new mid-season plum, the John W. cultivar from California, is promising and will now enter its commercial phase. It ripens ahead of Forelle pears, which is a significant consideration in pear production areas.
SAPO showed the major winner of recent times, Bigbucks Gala apples (they hold the license) of which over two million trees have been planted over a five-year period, and invited growers to the Gala orchards responsible for so many of the recent improved mutations like Bigbucks Gala and Royal Beaut.
SAPO at a half-century crossroads
SAPO recently went through a period of introspection, shares CEO Jacques Jordaan, during which they re-aligned themselves with the needs of South Africa's deciduous fruit farmers and the potential of their IP owners.
Representing more than 70 intellectual property (IP) owners across the world who wish to introduce a multitude of varieties to South Africa, it was time for SAPO, owned by the industry itself, to press the reset button.
"Eighteen months ago we benchmarked ourselves against international standards, and we refocused on the primary reasons for the existence of SAPO. This includes the management and propagation of clean plant material of exceptional quality for industry and our IP owners. Fifty years ago the concept of intellectual property didn't feature, and there weren't all the different systems of levies and royalties that there are today."
A relentless chase after new, royalty-bearing cultivars creates the risk of eclipsing the other principal role – that of plant improvement. Royal Beaut is an improved Royal Gala mutation that is still being improved by increments: every season, SAPO makes selections of the best plant material while the fruit is still on the tree.
Plant material testing guaranteed under South African conditions
It takes time. "Doing the basics right is critically important," he says. "You can quickly burn your fingers if the introduction of new cultivars is rushed. And in the end, it's the producer who pays for the failed experiments."
Relationships with IP owners endure for years, adds his colleague Elsa Muller. She is the variety development manager at SAPO. South Africa has one of the longest quarantine periods for plant material, she says: on budwood somewhat longer than for tissue culture. It takes at least two years before plant material is established in their nucleus tunnel.
Throughout the process of growing grafted saplings and eventually planting trial blocks in various locations the producer can have access to better quality plant material that was - crucially - first tested under South African conditions.
Dewilmor pears, just prior to harvesting, showcased at a recent field day
Very low success rate among trialed stonefruit varieties
The other ball they're juggling, apart from maintaining impeccable phytosanitary hygiene, is that of adaptability. Jordaan says: "Our climate and our conditions are unique. When a cultivar is multiplied as fast as possible to get it into production as quickly as possible, there are no guarantees that it's actually going to be a success. Producers have gone under after planting the flavor of the month which turned out not to be adaptable to local conditions. Haste can cost a producer a lot of money."
He points out that statistically, there is but a tiny chance of commercial success (that is, varieties eventually commercially established) among the hundreds of imported stonefruit varieties. Sometimes, he observes, it's necessary to take a longer-term and more cautious view. "We are not playing the Lotto. Producers are making 25+ year investments in their orchards. Cultivars and the quality of plant material are not decisions to be taken lightly by our producers."
Just as wine bears the imprint of its terroir, so too the specificities of a locale apply to fruit production, Jordaan says. It's a vital piece of the puzzle when selecting cultivars. "With the rise of IP, increasingly the questions to answer will be: what is your terroir? Does this cultivar work in your terroir? All IP will not be suitable for all production regions." He adds: "This approach requires a change in mindset. Cultivar characteristics must match the climate."
Managing expectations around royalties
The bottom line, Muller remarks, is that there is no single shoe fitting all IP owners. "We sit with them, we find out what exactly it is they need or what that they aim to achieve here, and we accordingly put together a package for them."
The nature of the levy or royalty attached to a cultivar forms part of this conversation, she says. "I always keep in mind the ways of our industry. Sometimes it differs from how it's done elsewhere in the world and then it's no use imposing a system just because that's how it's done elsewhere."
They can see that there is a change to the climate: parts of the Western Cape where mid-chill stonefruit varieties used to do well, are now looking much more at low-chill varieties. This presses the importance of playing the long game.
"It's a lengthy process to bring in plant material. You have to think ahead to what the industry will need ten, or twenty years from now. And that is why it's important not to just be chasing numbers. All the many alternative options available bring with it the responsibility to the farmer because," he repeats, "the buck always stops with them."
For more information:
SAPO Plant
Tel: +27 21 887 6823
Email: info@saplant.co.za
https://www.saplant.co.za/