India - Haryana government motivate farmers to grow horticulture crops

AHMEDABAD: Area under horticulture crops in Haryana has reached about 6.40% of the total cropped area of the state as a result of the drive of the state government to motivate the farmers to grow horticulture crops in place of traditional ones.

A spokesman of the horticulture department said that the efforts of the state government to encourage the farmers for diversification of crops had shown encouraging results. During the year 2010-11, the area under vegetable cultivation was 3,46,400 hectares. Apart from this, farmers were also taking keen interest in replacing their traditional crops by other commercial horticulture crops like flowers and spices.

He said that during the current financial year up to October 2011, fruit production of over 14.92 lakh tonnes was achieved by bringing 1,525 hectares of additional area under fruit cultivation and total area had increased to 47,775 hectares under fruit cultivation. Over 16.96 lakh tonnes of vegetables were produced by bringing over 1.93 lakh hectares of area under vegetable cultivation.

He said that 58,230 tonnes of spices had been produced through cultivation over an area of 9,580 hectares. Medicinal plants and flowers were grown over an area of 890 hectares and 3,360 hectares, respectively during the same period, he added.

Source: The Economic Times

Peru’s exotic fruit ripe for export growth

Lúcamas offer growing appeal

Peru’s exotic fruit exports look set to grow by 15 to 20% despite Europe’s economic recession, website Agraria.pe reported.

Food trade exporters argue lúcuma (also known as egg fruit), cherimoya, pomegranate and passion fruit offer market growth opportunities.

Kölla Hamburg executive Eduardo Talavera, said fresh fruit consumption in Europe was growing and in Germany supermarkets had experienced between 7% and 14% growth in fruit trade last year.

“It is time to take advantage of the consolidation of existing markets and identify new niches for fruit products,” he was quoted as saying.

His company’s research showed demand for mangoes, lúcuma, cherimoya, pomegranates and passion fruit would increase.

Also, increasingly affluent retiress looking for innovative, high quality produc such as peeled asparagus and pomegranates.

Kölla Hamburg is an international German fruit importer sourcing produce from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, South Africa and Uruguay.

Photo: Blogs.deperu.com

Source: www.freshfruitportal.com

Argentine’s blueberry heartland sees 20% export rise

Argentina’s heartland blueberry state, Tucumán has exported 3,700 metric tons (MT) so far – a 20% year-on-year increase, acccording to figures by the country’s blueberry committee.

Although, prices were not as high as producers had hoped leading to a total harvest of 4,700 MT, a little lower than the 5,000 MT originally forecast.

The quality of Tucumán fruit this season was better than last year’s due to a good climate with no extremes of temperature.

Concordia state is still in the middle of harvesting with earlier varieties such as O’Neal two thirds of the way through collection.

Harvesting of O’Neals is expected to finish a little earlier than estimated, Nov. 20, due to rain and lack of labourers.

Emerald variety is half way through harvesting with peak collection this week and fruit reported to be of good quality offering good yields.

Read full article at FreshFruitPortal.com

Leafsnap: An Electronic Field Guide

Columbia University, the University of Maryland, and the Smithsonian Institution are working on visual recognition software to help identify species from photographs. Leafsnap is the first in a series of electronic field guides being developed to demonstrate this new technology. This free mobile app helps identify tree species from photographs of their leaves and contains beautiful high-resolution images of their flowers, fruit, petiole, seeds, and bark. Leafsnap currently includes the trees of New York City and Washington, D.C., and will soon grow to cover the trees of the entire continental United States.

Hi Tech Approach to testing Fruit Ripeness

Customers want fresh food, which is neither unripe nor spoiled. A new system based on metal oxide sensors could check the safety and quality of foods reliably, quickly and economically -- such as how ripe that pineapple really is. Read more>

Fact Sheet: The Vegie Patch

By Tino Carnevale
It's a typical winter in Tasmania, with frosty mornings, sleet, snow, rain and really cold nights. The deciduous fruit trees are dormant, so it's the perfect time to plant them, transplant them, or give them a good prune.Tino is planting varieties of pear and quince. Most fruit trees need a pollinator. That is, they need a tree of the same type but different variety to pollinate their flowers. Tino has a William 'Bon Chretine' pear to pollinate the Beurre Bosc pear and vice versa. If you have a smaller sized yard, a quince tree is good because they're self-fertile, so you'll only need one tree. Another important thing to consider when selecting a fruit tree is shape or form. The Beurre Bosc Tino's chosen has excellent form and doesn't require much pruning. It's a good goblet shape with three to five laterals, evenly spaced around the main stem. Read more>

Avocado tree finally bears fruit after 19 years

(AP) HOUMA, La. — After 19 years just looking pretty, the avocado tree near Geneva Moore's house trailer is bearing fruit. "It's got a bunch of them," said Moore, 74. "I couldn't even believe it at first," said her son Jay, who planted the seed that grew into his mother's tree.Barton Joffrion, a horticultural agent at the LSU Ag Center in Houma, said it's unusual for avocado plants to bear more than leaves in south Louisiana. Read more>

Trial and error can help garden provide information - Las Vegas Sun

When horticultural scientists want to determine which plants among many will meet a particular need — cultural survival, flower color, fruit taste, or vegetable nutritional content, among other qualities — they often perform what are called "variety trials." These are usually carefully controlled studies that weigh the benefits and drawbacks of different plants grown under identical conditions. Read more:
Trial and error can help garden provide information - Las Vegas Sun Source: lasvegassun.com

lhc sent this using ShareThis.

NZ: 2009 HortNZ board election results

NZ: 2009 HortNZ board election results
Andrew Fenton and Brian Gargiulo have been re-elected to the Board of Horticulture New Zealand, the organisation that represents the country’s 7,000 commercial fruit, vegetable, berryfruit and olive growers.

Read more:
NZ: 2009 HortNZ board election results

Posted using ShareThis

Amid forestry slump, Sask. farmer tries berries

A tree seed nursery north of Prince Albert, Sask., that was one of the casualties of the collapsing forestry industry is getting a new lease on life as a fruit orchard.

In the late 1970s, Weyerhaeuser built the nursery to collect spruce and pine tree seeds.

The seeds were used to replace the trees the company was logging for Prince Albert's local pulp and paper mill.

When the mill shut down several years ago, however, so did the nursery.

Now, it's been purchased by local farmer Curtis Braaten.

Braaten wants to grow apples, sour cherries and haskap berries on 16 hectares of land.

Haskap berries, also known as honeyberries, are prized in Japan for their medicinal properties, he said.

Rather than cutting the cutting the seed trees down, Braaten plans to save them for when the forest sector rebounds.

"As long as I'm still around, nothing will happen to that orchard except for maintenance and maybe some sales," he said.

Amid forestry slump, Sask. farmer tries berries

Shared via AddThis

Agriculture Forum: Keeping vines in line

BY DUKE ELSNER

Wine grapes require summer "canopy management" to maintain vine health and promote fruit development. Left on their own, vines will produce an excess of shoot growth, leaves and fruit clusters.

Reducing this excess starts in the winter when vines are pruned to bring them back into a desired shape and size. Once growth gets under way in the spring, there are typically still far more growing points in the vine than are actually needed. Right now, hundreds of vineyard workers are rushing to keep up with rapidly growing vines, accelerated by the recent high temperatures.

Leaving too many shoots to grow results in excessive numbers of fruit clusters for the vine to support and ripen -- which is very detrimental to fruit and wine quality. More shoots also mean more leaves; the canopy of the vines becomes dense, limiting light penetration and restricting air flow through the vine. These conditions favor fungal disease problems and slow fruit ripening.

Read more:

Dr. Duke Elsner is a viticulture and enology educator for Michigan State University's Extension Service.

Apples dropping from trees may be due to lack of energy

Mark Bernskoetter, Master Gardener

Q: Why are all my apples falling off the tree? C.A. in Springfield

C.A. in Springfield
If you find fallen fruit, slice it open and check for larvae infestations to see if there are pests, which is one possibility for your problem.However, if the tree doesn't have sufficient energy to maintain the crop it is bearing, it simply drops the fruit. This often occurs naturally in larger fruits such as apples and pears. You can keep this from happening by selectively removing some of the blossoms in the spring as they start to drop their petals before the fruit ever forms. This is known as fruit thinning.

Overfertilizing or spring fertilizing, especially with high nitrogen fertilizers, will force the plant to put its energy into leaf production, even at the expense of fruit production. If you fertilize, do it in the fall.

Read more:

UNCP first Farm Bureau scholar

The first Farm Bureau Scholar at The University of North Carolina at Pembroke is a devoted vegetable, flower and fruit gardener.

Working this summer at UNCP’s Biotechnology Business and Training Laboratory, Brittany Locklear showed off samples of roses, ferns and lilies that she is micro-propagating under grow lights.

“This augur solution contains everything the plants need to grow, just like soil,” Locklear said. “I’ve been making more solution today.”

Locklear is interning in a National Institute of Health-funded program between UNCP and Robeson Community College (RCC). Besides plant propagation, she is working on bacterial transference using streptococcus epidermidis.

“I’m learning a lot about lab work,” she said. “But I enjoy gardening, and I really like being outdoors.”

Read more:

Vegetable & Fruit Production Line

(Tianshannet) Updated: 2009-June-24 12:07:06

Hotan Prefecture has 2.1 mln mu of fruit trees.In the past,farmers were worried about the sales of fruits and vegetables.

XJ Guannong Group plans to invest 100 mln yuan in Pishan County, and build a deep processing industrial park with daily processing capacity of 1,500 tons of fruits and vegetables. Now,the first phase project has put into production before the apricot harvest time.It can process about 40,000 tons of fresh apricot and tomato.Now,the enterprise has signed order for over 30,000 tons of fresh apricot and tomato purchase with farmers in Pishan County.

KAHA'ER AMUTI MEMBER OF STANDING COMMITTEE OF CPC PISHAN COUNTY:

"The tomato planting area will reach 40,000 to 50,000 mu. And it's output value will reach 56 mln yuan.Farmers' income can increase by 300 yuan."

(SOURCES:XJTV)Editor: zhaoqian

'Food processing infrastructure must improve’

Statesman News Service
HALDIA, 24 JUNE:

The Union finance minister, Mr Pranab Mukherjee, today said there was a need to upgrade the food processing industries in the state to preserve excess supply of vegetables and fruit.

He was speaking at the foundation stone-laying ceremony of a new manufacturing edible oil refinery unit at Haldia this morning. Emphasising the need to upgrade infrastructure concerning cold storage, Mr Mukherjee said the state produces a huge quantity of tropical fruit but as a result of the dearth of proper storage units, a large amount of these fruit are destroyed each year. He also said that despite having a huge potential, the main constraint faced by food processing industries lies in the process of setting up proper hygienic infrastructure and there was a need to set up hygienic cold storage units to meet this deficiency. He also reiterated that at present, India imports 10 lakh tons of edible oil from various countries to bridge the demand-supply gap in the country.

He said that though India is the second largest producer of fruit after Brazil and of vegetables after China, the farmers over here do not get a proper price for their production.

Read more:

Berried treasures in Acampo

Acampo farm gives blueberry fans the opportunity to pick their own fresh fruit

By Reed Fujii
Record Staff Writer
June 21, 2009 6:00 AM

If variety is the spice of life, Liz Giusto's must be mighty zesty.
She and her family grow 15 different types of blueberries on about four acres in Acampo, peddling the fruit to U-pick visitors and at the Thursday night farmers market in downtown Lodi.

"We wanted to find out what varieties produce the best berries," Giusto explained. All the plants they've planted since 2003 have thrived, she said, but, "We discovered that each variety had its own characteristics and flavors."

Some are especially sweet, while others add a burst of acidity. Some berries provide a deep, rich flavor, some are mild, while still others have a spiciness, a hint of cinnamon.

Giusto leaves it up to her customers to decide which flavor they like the best.

Read more:

FRUITTRADE Chile 2009

The largest offering of fruits and vegetables in the Southern Hemisphere directly from the growers

On Sept.ember 23 and 24, the 7th edition of the “International Business Round Table; Chilean Fruit and Vegetables for Export” or FRUITTRADE will take place. It is an event organized by the National Fruit Growers Federation of Chile (FEDEFRUTA) with the support of the Chilean Export Promotion Bureau (ProChile) that reports to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs.

Read more:

Coming soon: Mangoes, bananas that last longer

The National Botanical Research Institute (NBRI), Lucknow, is working to develop transgenic varieties of mangoes and bananas that will take longer than usual to ripen. The aim is to increase the shelf life of these fruits and, thus, cut down on their wastage during transportation.

“India produces 45 million tonnes of fruits every year but 30 to 50 per cent is lost to post-harvest deterioration.

NBRI is researching how to delay fruit ripening and, in the process, produce transgenic varieties of mangoes and bananas with a longer shelf life,” said Dr Aniruddha Sane, one of the four scientists engaged in the research work.

Read more:
Coming soon: Mangoes, bananas that last longer

Shared via AddThis

Teachers Taught

Saturday, Jun. 20, 2009
Topics: Food processing and farming
By John Holland
jholland@modbee.com

Photo: (JOHN HOLLAND / jholland@modbee.com) - Workers sort apricots at the Del Monte cannery in Modesto on Thursday (06-18-09).

With school out for summer, it was time to head for the cannery.

These weren't students with summer jobs processing fruit. They were teachers touring the Del Monte Foods plant in Modesto.

It was part of a four-day program held this week in which 10 teachers learned about farming and food processing in the Northern San Joaquin Valley.

"I just wanted to tie in agriculture to our science studies and have the kids relate to what's around them," said Stefanie Wedde, a science teacher at Livingston Middle School.

The program was sponsored by the organizers of the Ag Science Center, an interactive museum planned at Modesto Junior College.


The teachers learned about soil, genetics, nutrition and other topics. They dropped by the Modesto Certified Farmers Market and the Loretelli Farms produce stand.



Read more:

Fun with fruit

By Joan Morris
Contra Costa Times
Posted: 06/19/2009 05:17:45 PM PDT

You don't need acres of ground to experience the taste of freshly picked fruit. With today's dwarf rootstocks, everyone can grow at least one fruit tree no matter how small your yard.

Single fruit trees make wonderful accent points in a mixed border with their spring blossom and summer fruit. Apple trees on standard stock and persimmons make wonderful shade trees more than 30 feet tall.

Another form to consider is the espaliered or trained fruit tree, which can be grown flat against a house, wall or fence. Branches are trained in regular patterns, usually horizontal or fan shaped, which actually improves fruit production.



Read more: