© Carolize Jansen | FreshPlaza.comOn the day of FreshPlaza's visit to the Bridelia Group of Levubu, Carmen Hass avocados are picked. In general, they obtain good sizes on the cultivar, exclusively grown for Westfalia, which manages Bridelia's avocado exports.
Right: Wiekus van der Walt, general manager of the Bridelia Groep, and Danie Brits
"We need to finish harvesting by the middle of April," explains Wiekus van der Walt. "That's before Peru seriously starts sending to Europe." This year, both South Africa and Peru have smaller fruit, translating to higher competition between the two countries on the European market.
Van der Walt has been the Bridelia Group's general manager for the past fourteen years. The enterprise owns a spread of parcels, together comprising the Furstenberg and Bridelia farms, mostly irrigated from boreholes. Plentiful rain during January and February meant irrigation could be kept to a minimum.
The name of the farming enterprise derives from the brown stinkwood or mitzeeri tree, Bridelia micrantha, which still occurs in swampy parts of their farms. Accreditation standards are increasingly paying attention to pockets of native vegetation on farms, he remarks.
High heat impacts on young fruit
© Carolize Jansen | FreshPlaza.comIn the Levubu Valley, it had been very hot during November and the beginning of December before the first rains. "That kind of heat while the fruit is growing ends up in smaller fruit, unfortunately, no matter how much you irrigate."
Right: The harvester takes care not to nick the fruit when cutting the stem
Bridelia's avocados are packed at two packhouses in Levubu (Amondel Pakkers and The Fruit Farm Group) and at Westfalia's two packhouses in Tzaneen. "We are an early area, but in the avocado industry, things have changed so," he says. "Every year is different, but these days, Tzaneen starts harvesting at about the same time as us. In the past, they always used to be a month behind us."
First up in the avocado calendar is the greenskin Fuerte, the first avocado to replenish South African shelves (a national 'shortage' during January occupied many social posts), and when volumes pick up, exports start. Local avocado distribution is handled by Amondel Pakkers.
He notes that orchard management approaches have substantially changed in recent times. "We allow more weeds and other plants on the orchard floor. We're not following the principles of a 'clean' orchard like we did two or three years ago. We find that vegetation keeps the soil temperature down, and it assists with insect pressure."
That said, he adds, the coconut bug has been problematic again this season; it often manifests when it's already too late for spraying.
Effective micro-organism (EM) mixtures are brewed with molasses to improve the soil health in their orchards, he adds.
© Carolize Jansen | FreshPlaza.comHarvesting avocados is a physical endeavour
Macadamia kernels re-emerge as economical
While macadamia nuts still occupy roughly half of Bridelia's acreage, older orchards have been removed and replaced with an earlier avocado cultivar, expected to occupy a slot two to three weeks earlier in the harvesting calendar. "That makes a big difference," he remarks.
The kernel price has recovered from a disastrous slump since COVID-19, when it actually became uneconomical to farm macadamias. The price for nuts-in-shell, which go primarily to China, has unfortunately not improved.
© Carolize Jansen | FreshPlaza.comLeft: South African equity legislation requires that harvest teams are composed of women and men. Right: a harvest bag carries 15 kilograms of avocados
Macadamia and avocados demand roughly the same amount of labour – 0.3 people per hectare (compared to 0.8 for a banana field of one hectare). Avocados require fewer chemical sprays than macadamias, but the clincher when deciding between the two is how long it takes to reach the breakeven point.
"A macadamia nut tree takes you seven years plus before you can take off breakeven production. With avos, by year three or four, you can start to get yields and a return on investment. That means you have a three-year advantage on macadamias when you establish an avocado orchard."
Bananas a barometer of economic health
At the moment, Bridelia's bananas are flowering, and bunches are only cut every second week. The peak banana season is September until January, when they supply the market weekly.
© Carolize Jansen | FreshPlaza.comBridelia's banana brand is well-known among buyers at Gauteng's municipal markets
Over the past two years, bananas have earned good returns at the municipal markets in Johannesburg, Tshwane, and Springs.
Buyers for supplying local supermarkets in Polokwane collect green bananas at the farm to be ripened in Polokwane. Bridelia has its own ripening rooms, but they've discontinued that step. "We used to ripen bananas for small greengrocers in Polokwane and Mokopane, but many of them have disappeared, pushed out by the large chain stores."
In Pretoria, their bananas are ripened off-market at Subtropico-owned Zire, while in City Deep, Johannesburg, RSA market agency rents ripening facilities. An improvement in the municipal Joburg Market's ripening chamber infrastructure has been reported.
Van der Walt explains that the recent good banana returns came about mostly as a result of the unfortunate series of events hitting Mozambique, the tropical cyclone Freddy and severe flooding, and then more recently, the political unrest.
For more information:
Wiekus van der Walt
Bridelia Group
Tel: +27 81 502 5734
Email: wiekus@bridelia.co.za