BioGold North America, a citrus variety development company, is now licensing growers to plant two new red orange varieties in California. BioGold North America is a part of the BioGold International family of companies, which has footprints in Australia, Spain, the Mediterranean Basin, South Africa, South America and the United States.
Bayer will introduce Vanity Citrus®, its latest biological and pheromone-based crop protection product to control pests on citrus farms during the International Symposium on Horticulture in Europe – SHE2021, March 8-11. Bayer is a main sponsor of the event, which invites scientists and industry leaders to discuss the latest achievements and developments in horticulture. Bob Reiter, Head of Research and Development for Bayer Crop Science is a SHE2021 featured speaker. He will discuss the company’s R&D strategy for fruits and vegetables.
Ten months ago, in March 2020, we predicted a bumper export season, estimating that export volumes would reach 143 million cartons of fruit. Now that the final export figures are in, we can announce a record-breaking 2020 export season that delivered 146 million cartons of South African citrus to the rest of the world,” said Just Chadwick CEO of the Citrus Grower’s Association in South Africa.
The new citrus export levy for 2021 has been announced: R1,64 per 15kg carton – a significant increase from 74c per 15kg carton in 2020. The industry as a whole welcomes the increase and predicts that it could result in an additional income of about R134 million.
More South African citrus fruits will be heading to the US under a new agreement. Early this month, the US government announced the opening of several new ports for South African citrus fruits. The US department of agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service approved the use of additional ports for South African citrus on November 5. The US embassy said the facilitation of the trade between the two countries provided flexibility to American retailers and wholesalers, lowering transportation costs and broadening the reach of South African citrus to other regions.
South Africa’s Limpopo and Mpumalanga citrus production regions enjoyed mild temperatures during an “almost ideal” fruit set this spring on all cultivars, including on seedless Valencias. Regions that have been receiving sub-average rainfall for years now, had substantial rain early last month. “Producers need to be cognisant of the potential negative impact of too high fruit set, of which a reduction in fruit size is the most problematic,” the South African citrus industry’s technical service Citrus Research International reminds growers.
Understanding how potential climate change will affect availability of water resources for citrus production globally is needed. The main goal of this study is to investigate impacts of potential future climate change on citrus irrigation requirements (IRR) in major global citrus producing regions, e.g., Africa, Asia, Australia, Mediterranean, Americas. The Irrigation Management System (IManSys) model was used to calculate optimum IRR for the baseline period (1986–2005) and two future periods (2055s and 2090s) subject to combination of five and seven temperature and precipitation levels, respectively. Predicted IRR show significant spatio-temporal variations across study regions. Future annual IRR are predicted to globally decrease; however, future monthly IRR showed mixed results.
“Two serious viral diseases are affecting Turkey’s citrus cultivation and threatening all the Mediterranean countries”. This was reported by Antonino Catara, former president of the International Organisation of Citrus Virologists.
“One of the two diseases – continued the scientist – is the Citrus Chlorotic Dwarf CCD, which mainly affects lemon and grapefruit plants, but also marginally mandarin and clementine plants. The viral infection has a significant impact on the yield and quality of the fruit, as well as on the crown’s vegetative development, due to the short internodes”.