|
For successful marketing white, red and black grapes should be available on world markets for 12 months of the year, the guests heard.
Apart from the work being done by the South African Agricultural Research Council, cultivars bred in Israel have also been introduced to South Africa.
Dan ben Hannah and Prime have made a significant impact on table grape production in South Africa.
Another 40 cultivars, released by the Volcani Research Institute in Israel for distribution in the industry, could be sampled at the exhibition.
Guests could also look at (and taste) 36 new cultivars from the breeding programme that is being conducted on the farm Nancy in Paarl South.
"Of these 76 new cultivars we have here now, perhaps only five will pass the test and will then be accepted in the market place," Hoekstra said.
When Aat Hoekstra started farming on the historical Nancy in 1954, he soon realized how limited the table grapes cultivars were - with only Waltham Cross, Alphonse en Queen available. Barlinka was successful in the Hex River Valley, but not in Paarl.
From 1970 an earnest search got under way for new cultivars.
Material - Superior Seedless from California, Victoria from Romenia and Prime from Israel - was acquired.
Prime turned into the success story, and is the cultivar that is now being planted far and wide in South Africa.
Hoekstra, however, passes the credit to Ted Evans, retired agricultural attaché who has been involved with the breeding programme on Nancy for eight years.
The other scientist to whom the exhibition was dedicated is Israeli Dr P Spiegel-Roy, the breeder of the cultivar, Prime. |
THE future of new table grape cultivars to be introduced to the industry in South Africa lay in the hands - and tastebuds - of 500 guests at an exhibition held in Paarl recently.