Forelle pears offer a silver lining in difficult pear season

The South African pear season is ending on a high note thanks to Forelle pears. They are the first pears of the season whose volumes aren’t markedly down and the sizing on Forelle is “surprisingly good”, after a season of depressed volumes and small sizes on the earlier cultivars.

The Forelle harvest started in week 11 and overall industry experts report good colour and packout percentages, size too. The season is later than usual. In some areas the Forelle harvest would usually be over by the end of March.

Night temperatures are dropping as autumn approaches in the Southern Hemisphere. “We’re not used to harvesting in autumn, but the cool nights are helping the Forelle to maintain its blush,” says Christo Strydom of Wolfpack, where they are busy with the last 10% of the 2017/18 pear harvest. “Daytime temperatures are in the mid to high 20s, we don’t expect it to reach over 30°C again.” He explains that the Forelle is naturally born red (unlike an apple where the colour needs to develop) but that two conflicting conditions turn the blush to green: shade created by leaf cover as well as daytime temperatures over 30°C. Managing the two factors simultaneously can be a bit of a Catch-22, but not this season.

Another benefit to cooler autumnal conditions is that the fruit’s internal pulp temperature is lower when coming in from the orchard, which reduces pressure on the packhouse refrigeration structure.

Delecta Fruit is currently sending Forelle pears across the globe, says Gert Marais, head of pome fruit at Delecta Fruit, with the largest volumes probably going to Germany. The country takes the mid sizes – counts 80 to 90 – with smaller pears (counts 96 to 120) for the Middle East. Forelle isn’t a large pear; normally about 10% of the harvest fall in the range of counts 48 to 70. Since these volumes are limited, small volumes which do very well go to the Far East (Vietnam, Singapore, Hong Kong) and Canada.

Cathrine Smuts of De Keur says they’re sending their early FEMA Forelle to the Far East, a good market at the moment, until week 15. They are quite pleased with the size Forelle has obtained this season, particularly compared to the earlier pears. They will only send non-FEMA Forelle pears to Europe; there is a gap of eight weeks between the two batches.

“This is a year in which you will get a premium on large fruit,” says Gert Marais.

South Africa is working on access for pears to China (the industry is about 99% there, according to those involved in the process). The Chinese market would probably also want large pears, which would further fragment the small segment of large Forelles.

In Europe, where their own pears were smaller, as was the harvest, supermarkets earlier moved over to Southern Hemisphere supply and South Africa could send more to the EU and the UK, but unfortunately the strengthening local currency has flattened out these advantages.

Buying power has been limp in the Middle East, for the past two to three seasons already, says Marais, among other things as a result of the introduction of VAT in Dubai.

About 10% of Forelle volumes are marketed locally.

Sizing problems on other pears but not on Forelle

Packhams Triumph is 21% below last year’s volumes by week 10 YTD. The pear usually peaks at count 60, this year it’s around two counts smaller. Growers talk of a drop of 20 to 30% on early pears. Year-to-date pear export volumes are 25% down on last year, when the season was earlier.

The reason why the sizing on Forelle pears is better than the other, earlier cultivars, could be because of irrigation strategies during the drought. Bon Chretien pears were already harvested in January, with their post-harvest irrigation much reduced (or in some cases even cut off) in favour of the later-bearing Forelle. However, it is during this time that the flower buds for next season are initiated and under reduced irrigation, the size of next year’s fruit is compromised. In this way, a late cultivar like Forelle is at an advantage. This means that early cultivar pears could again be on the small side next year.

However, pruning and thinning out strategies that favour large buds and young wood can alleviate the effect of unavoidable irrigation prioritisation.

Two postharvest Forelle strategies in South Africa

There are two postharvest strategies in the South African Forelle industry which alleviates the bottleneck of a large volume of Forelle pears marketed simultaneously: producers either let fruit rest at 0°C or -0.5°C for 12 weeks (8 weeks in situ in a packhouse, a week of packing followed by three weeks on a ship) to improve eating quality (“Forelle are lazy ethylene producers,” says Christo Strydom). These pears will be marketed later in the season, up until about week 35.

The Forelle pears currently sent to market follow the Forelle Early Market Access (FEMA) protocol. These pears hang 14 days longer and then receive Smartfresh treatment which expedites the ripening process and the pears can be sent to market quicker to close the gap between the early blush pears and Forelle.

The decision on which protocol to adopt or a combination of the two, depends partly on logistical matters like a producer’s cooling capacity or the numbers of crates available. The FEMA protocol has extended the South African Forelle marketing window by about four weeks.

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Christo Strydom