Page 39 - SA Fruit Journal VOLUME 14

SAPO supports breast cancer at Hortgro Golf DayeLSA muLLeREstablishment of Royal apricot mother blockFReDeRik VoiGT Business Unit Manager ProductionSAPO Trust took part in the annual golf day of Hortgro at the lovely Devon Valley Golf Estate on Thursday, 23 October 2014. The team consisted of Frederik Voigt (captain), Divan Venter, Ar-mand van Niekerk, Daniell du Preez, Rudi Vos (waterboy) and Elsa Muller (organiser).SAPO decided that because October is breast cancer awareness month they will dress in Pink to show their support. It took a little convincing to get all the guys to wear pink, but the positive feedback was wonderful for the egos. Elsa’s pink shirt was auctioned for R1000 during the prize giving, which was donated to CANSA.We are looking forward to be part of this event again next year, and hereby challenge the other teams to also do their bit to show their support.Back row: Daniell, Armand, Divan and Frederik. Front: Rudi and Elsa.Most of the scions available to the South African apricot indus- try are only compatible with Royal (Blenheim) seedling root- stock. (Reinten et al., 2009). This rootstock is ideal for deep, well-drained soils but not for high clay, water-logged calcareous and ring nematode infested soils. Currently only apricot seedlings (Royal and Soldonné) are compatible with apricot scion cultivars. It is therefore very important for SAPO Trust to supply enough Royal seeds to the nurseries, but there is no demand for the fruits of this variety any- more and no more commercial Royal production blocks are planted anymore.To overcome this problem, SAPO Trust in co-operation with Dried Fruit Technical Services, the Western Cape Department of Agriculture, Prins Albert Municipality and Montagu Dried Fruit es- tablished a Royal apricot planting for production of dried fruit and certified seeds in the Prins Albert region. This project will not only supply enough certified seeds to the nurseries, but will also create new jobs for this high unemployment area.Apricot trees on Royal seedling.BEDRYFSNUUS36 FEB | MAART 2015