AGRICULTURAL NEWS - It was just over two years ago that Farmer’s Weekly first published a story on the early stages of Peter Nicholson’s pioneering foray into gold kiwifruit production in South Africa.
At that stage, Roselands Farm in KwaZulu-Natal’s temperate Richmond area had only 10ha of immature three-year-old gold kiwifruit orchards under hail netting.
Nicholson was then expecting a yield of between 1t/ha and 2t/ha from his first harvest, a figure far below the yields of up to 70t/ha being achieved in some of New Zealand’s established commercial orchards.
Nicholson, who has persisted with his vision to become a successful commercial gold kiwifruit producer in South Africa, is hoping to harvest 20t/ ha in March from his five-year-old orchards.
