Orange industry in big troubleThe orange industry is facing a "disaster", with up to 40% of navels dropping off trees in the Eastern Cape. A team from Citrus Research International, in Nelspruit, is investigating the problem, which threatens to halve the harvest. Hans via pixabay "In my 19 years in the industry I have never seen anything like this," said Snyman Kritzinger, a farmer in the Gamtoos Valley, in the Eastern Cape, on the industry website FreshPlaza. The loss of early and mid-season navel oranges is expected to reduce exports of 15kg cartons by between 15% and 20%. The original export estimate was 26.3 million cartons. "At first we thought the harvest might be 30% lower but now we're thinking it might be 50% down," said Hannes de Waal, MD of the Sundays River Citrus Company. He said it was the first time in living memory that something like this had happened on such a scale. The skin of affected oranges splits, leading to infections and the fruit dropping off the tree. Citrus Research International's Hannes Bester blamed the disaster on the drought: "For a while now nature hasn't been playing along. In the past 18 months, we have had half our usual rainfall." Source: The Times |