ITEST™ CARBOHYDRATES analyses for pome fruit

Carbohydrates

ITEST™CARBOHYDRATES analyses for pome fruit by Dr Elmi Lötze, Head of ITEST™CARBOHYDRATES and ITEST™LEAF and Wilmè Brown, Plant Physiologist Biological indicator for management decisions The ITEST™CARBOHYDRATES service is now also available for pears and apples. Although the impact of carbohydrates on pome fruit cultivation has been investigated locally for many years, a commercial service making […]

Cover up! Or be exposed

Cover crops

Cover up! Or be exposed. by André Strauss, Head of Soil Microbiology, Agri Technovation What is a cover crop? Just as human skin is damaged by the radiation of sun rays, soil is damaged if not covered. One of the best “suntan lotions” for soil is the planting of cover crops. Cover crops refer to […]

PICKLOGGER™ is a game changer 

PICKLOGGER™ is a game changer  By Albert Bijker and Erald Smith PICKLOGGER™ is a game-changing device that helps farmers and their stakeholders to identify and manage various factors that affect the yields of hand-harvested crops. By recording and logging data points during harvesting, PICKLOGGER™ makes it possible for farmers to produce yield maps, giving them […]

How your avocado orchard benefits from carbohydrate analyses

How your avocado orchard benefits from carbohydrate analyses   By Dr Elmi Lötze (Head of ITEST™CARBOHYDRATES and ITEST™LEAF) and Wilmé Brown (Plant Physiologist), Agri Technovation Carbohydrates as physiological indicator of plant status The use of carbohydrate analyses to study plant performance is an established practice in the research environment (Wolstenholm, 1987; Whiley et al., 1988; […]

Blue Gold: Let’s start digging

Blue Gold: Let’s start digging   by Hestia Pienaar   Responsible and efficient irrigation A satellite remote sensing study conducted by the WRC reported that 1 334 562 hectares were actively irrigated in South Africa during 2015. The agricultural industry is under constant pressure to account for the allocation of this water and to ensure […]

Measure, understand, improve

The combination of PICKLOGGER™ and MYSOIL CLASSIFICATION™ in fruit crops By Marnus Ferreira, Head of Grains, Agri Technovation   This article focuses on three actions or concepts as outlined in the title: measure, understand and improve. Together these three actions represent the best current method available for improving yields meaningfully, especially on farms that already […]

Why do irrigated fruit crops perform better on some soils

Why do irrigated fruit crops perform better on some soils By Marnus Ferreira, Head of Soil Sciences, Agri Technovation This article aims to better explain the intricacies of how soils behave under irrigation in a scientific yet practical way. Due to the massive variation in soil types that exists in areas of Southern Africa, we […]