English growers have been left with the image of a highly competitive international industry in which new growing techniques and varieties are still exploding onto the scene in the race to at least hold market share.

This is the view of Nuffield scholar Stewart Clarke, speaking at the recent annual Tesco apple conference, who having visited apple production in France, Chile and New Zealand, all of which are major exporters to the UK, had a clear message for Tesco's growers.

Chilean counterparts were fast learners, according to Clarke, replacing non-productive areas and using trickle irrigation and netting as standard, with trials on foil for light reflection into the tree. Gala plantations yield between 100-120 tonnes per hectare, and new varieties include Gala Galaxy and Brookfield. Apples now account for 35 percent of southern hemisphere fruit exports, and 31 percent of all Chilean fresh fruit.

While this industry has won market share from New Zealand, the latter is still regarded as a major competitor, and Clarke visited Napier and Hawkes Bay, which accounts for about half of national production. Red netting is being used there to create microclimates within orchards, and this is capable of raising temperatures by as much as 3oC. New training techniques using wires between two main posts are being trialled, training trees up nylon strings to avoid staking, as with tomatoes.

New Zealand has always been a leader in terms of varieties, said Clarke, with M26 found to be the best rootstock for Jazz, accounting for 50 percent of all new plantings. But extensive trials of this variety, alongside Fuji, Gala and Braeburn, are underway on M9.

Based on what he had seen, Clarke reached the conclusion that in many cases, the UK should consider the following: “Single row planting offers the most consistent results as regards volume, quality and pest and disease control.”

And he questioned whether there should be a fixed distance between trees, because of the unique factors belonging to individual sites.

“Is each orchard performing successfully and to maximum capacity?” he asked the audience. “Cost analysis should be carried out on each one, and similar to other industries, irrigation and hail netting should be considered with the investment involved in intensive systems.

“If growers are planting high-volume cropping varieties, could these be better suited to stronger rootstock?” Clarke added as food for thought. “And can they be improved through more detail in tree husbandry?”

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