I’ve just been up looking at the grapes. The quality is the best I’ve seen for a long time. We’re looking forward to a good season after a few tough ones.
Kumquat quash: Pakistan has included ‘kumquat’ in a list of more than 1,000 words it has demanded mobile phone network providers censor from text messages. (Photo: David R Tribble.)
Pakistan’s kinnow export season has got off to a difficult start due to tough market competition from Chinese fruit and no access to Indonesia.
Fresh Appeal: The front cover of the December 2011/January 2012 issue of Asiafruit Magazine features not only the chief executive of BayWa, the company set to take over NZ supplier Turners & Growers in the new year, but a brand new logo.
The magazine has undergone a major redesign, bringing it into line with sister titles Eurofruit and Americafruit, while also enabling us to deliver all the latest industry news and views in a more up-to-date, more modern format.
For more information on how to secure your copy, click on Subscribe.
During the flooding in Bangkok, Thai importer Vachamon used small boats to get fruit out of cold storage and onto trucks to deliver to customers, before moving operations to the Laem Chabang Port area above the flood level.
It’s not what most growers would call ideal land, but Chilean kiwifruit grower Christian Abud said his rocky 37ha “professional challenge” is now one of the world’s largest single orchards of the gold-fleshed Jintao kiwifruit variety.
Abud chose to plant on the site, in partnership with grower-marketer Subsole, because he had seen good results from the eucalypt plantation that had stood there for the previous 50 years.
“I think the advantages are on the earliness at maturity,” he told Asiafruit Magazine. “The stone is heated and releases summer temperature at night. I think the roots of the kiwifruit are very comfortable for the high oxygenation and organic matter that is left [from] the forest.”
Indian apple producers are missing out on the huge potential of their domestic market, says marketing professional Vipul Mittal.
I think sooner or later we will have to open the market more, because our self-production is less than 40 per cent. But there are so many growers in Japan too, and there is concern - agriculture is a country’s base issue. But I think we will open the door more.
Once again at the Asia Fruit Logistica, that was probably the most inquiries we really had over there was from mainland China, looking for opportunities to import Australian cherries.