 Good evening, everybody. Welcome to the Private Property Farming Podcast. My name is Mali Moko, your host of the Farming Podcast. Thank you so much for joining us and supporting the episode. As well as the podcast and its entirety. Remember, we are live every Tuesdays and Thursdays at 8 p.m., bringing you guests, farmers, experts, professionals in the industry. Every single thing you need to know about agri or farming, this is the place to be, the Private Property Farming Podcast. Today's episode is 75 of the podcast and we're speaking to Leander Foslow. He's the owner of berries for Africa and our topic for tonight is pretty much how to grow and care for your berry plants. So if you have a passion for blueberry farming, this is the podcast to be watching this evening. If you have any questions for Leander, please drop them and we're always happy to answer throughout the show. If we missed any of the questions, hopefully we can also just respond on our YouTube channel where the show will be aired, post this live. Let's get into our conversation with Leander this evening. Leander, thank you for joining the podcast. How are you doing? Well, still chilly this side of Pretoria, but I'm doing well. Thank you. Absolutely. Yeah, it's very, very cold and I can't wait for summer to come. But thank you for joining, like I said earlier on, but just tell us firstly about berries for Africa. What do you do or what services do you provide in the farming slash agriculture industry? We're basically a nurseries that specializes in berry plants. So we cater for two major groups. One, we like to see it as the nursery customers where we cater to more than 16 nurseries in and around Hauteng. And the other part of the business, which is about 60% of our business, we grow various berry plants to farmers, which are basically berry producers. We supply them with berry plants. So at this stage, blueberries, I think, let's call it number one worldwide. It's very popular. But we do more than just blueberries. At the moment, we're growing more than 20 tops of berries. We have blueberries one, raspberries, a different one, gooseberries, another. And then also within the different tops, we do grow different and various varieties as well. For example, we do six varieties of raspberries, three-year-old berries, 28 blueberry varieties, et cetera. Yeah, you said 60% of your clients are farmers, right? How has the berry industry grown over the years? Or since you started, you know, sowing berry plants? Look, there's a massive demand on part of the blueberry association in the Cape, where we don't try and monitor what's going on locally and globally to see what is the demand in the Northern Hemisphere, especially in Europe, as well as what the competition in the Southern Hemisphere is doing, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, Peru, Chile, Mexico, and obviously what the demands, you know. And we try not to control that, but just to monitor that to see what, you know, in case a farmer comes to us and say they want to plant 500 hectares in the next year to guide them into the right direction, to make sure there is a demand for their fruit, and also to see what is the gap in the market with countries such as Asia that's opening up, that's consuming a quite a bit of berries in the last two or three years. Yeah, so we've grown quite a bit. We had to open a tissue culture facility in our own laboratory to make sure our plants are virus and disease free, and also to have the capacity to be able to supply more than a million plants a year, which is what the demand requires. Wow, that sounds like a lot. More than a million plants a year, that's quite hectic. And what are the basic fundamentals of starting blueberry farming? So whether I'm farming from a commercial scale or I'm just farming, you know, in my own garden, what are some of the aspects to consider? Maybe like location, the size, yeah, how can one start blueberry farming? Yeah, well, we, as I mentioned, we've got 28 different varieties of blueberries, so the best is to find out from the new potential customer or farmer in this case, if they have land, and if so, in which area it is. So we'll do a study on the specific microclimate to make sure we can recommend a viable variety, at least one variety that's suitable for export quality fruit. And then obviously, if you want to plant in soil, blueberries are very salt sensitive, sensitive as well as sensitive to the root rot. So if you don't want to plant in the soil, the soil has to be or has to have a clay content of less than 20%. Alternatively, one can plant in a pot or a bag that contains a growing medium that's imported either from Lithuania or Canada and mixed with substances such as a washed and buffered cocoa from Sri Lanka or Pakistan. But that adds about 450,000 rand per hectare to the cost compared to planting directly in the soil. So apart from the soil and the climate, you need to look at your market as well. So if you are planning to grow a few hectares for the local market, one needs to decide will you hire your logistics or are you close to a local market such as Bloomington or East London, Durban, KZN, Cape Town, where you can directly deliver to the fresh produce markets or other markets such as Agents or other chain stores such as, you know, the retail. Yeah, so if I heard you correctly about basically securing a market because blueberries is a super crop or a super food and obviously very high in capital expenditure when you start farming. So the market needs to be secured. You have to have good soil composition. And I heard you say, okay, soil is there. And then also it's just maybe deciding whether you're going directly into soil or using some form of growing medium to farm your crop. But what also stuck out for me is that you mentioned, you know, if you use the pot for growing medium, that's an additional 450,000 rand cost per hectare. What's the cost per hectare directly maybe into the soil? No, maybe you not specifically the farmer. You are the nursery, but having worked with farmers, what's the average cost per hectare directly into the soil when looking to farm blueberries? If you have sandy or sandy loam soils available with clay content, with the highest 25%, preferably 20% or less, you're looking at around 750 to 800,000 rand per hectare. If you need to plant in a growing medium, it's closer to 1.25 million, which adds the pot, which is about 30 rand. And the growing medium can be anything from one rand 60 to 10 a liter. So if you plant in a 25 liter pot, just your medium can cost around 50 to 55 rand per unit. So if you're working on 7,000 units or plants per hectare, that's where you get your 450. So the plant material is not that expensive. It's about a tenth of the cost of the whole operation per hectare. Your irrigation is also fairly inexpensive. Your system, your dosing system can be expensive. You're ranging anything from 170,000 to 600,000 per hectare depending on your scale and the type of technology that you use. Unfortunately, I would say your number one challenge would be birds because they just love blueberries. Because it's not just an annual crop. It's a crop that can produce anything from 10 to 25 years, depending on the climate and the type of production system used. The birds will come. They will lay more eggs because there's just more food for them and they can consume a substantial amount of your profits. So a net system that'll cost you anything from 300 to 330,000 rand per hectare must be installed, at least from the second year, when your plants will start to produce fruit. Yeah. Our title this evening is how to grow and care for your berry plants. So you've obviously mentioned the infrastructural needs as well as the soil composition needs to effectively grow berry plants. But what type of fertilizers do berries require? And also just in the growing aspect, for how long do you have to treat the tree before your harvest? And for how long does it take for the trees to end its life cycle? So just what are some of the tips to actually make sure that your berry production is grown successfully from a fertilizer perspective? And for how long do you start to get your first harvest and when does the plant's life cycle end? Well, Bali, that is a good question, but it's not a difficult answer because we do more than 20 types of berries. They all vary. For example, the sea buckthorn and the aronia berries will only produce from the third year. They need very minimum fertilizer, although a balanced fertilizer that contains about 14 elements of minerals is needed. And then others such as the gooseberries can produce within 100 days, similar to a tomato plant after planting. They're very vigorous and very quick growing. It's a softer body, tissue body plant that can get injured with winters, colder than minus three. The blueberries, as I mentioned, are salt-sensitive and also sensitive to overdoses of nitrates and other salts like potassium that the plant needs. But you need to take almost like a spoon feeding approach with plants such as blueberries and cranberries that are salt-sensitive. We feed our plants, for example, six times a day. From nine o'clock, they get fed water and fertilizers every two hours until about five o'clock in summer. You can, for the homegrower, there's easier products. We use two products. The one is Israeli product called Haifa Multicote. The other one is OsmoCote, which is basically a coated fertilizer, which is a very slow release. It releases the fertilizer within about nine months. And we only use five grams every six to eight months that we apply five grams per plant. And then you can just give the plant water. Alternatively, if you want to go to the complete certified organic route, there's a group in South Africa called Talbon Organics. It's a European certification. We use those fertilizers as well, especially where a grower wants to grow the plant's 100% certified organic. There's various programs, but for example, a 232 works well for establishment for the first year. And then you can slightly transcend over to something like a 315 that contains more potassium and calcium for the fruit set. Yeah, some of the plants only last two or three years, such as the gooseberries, where they need to be replaced. Others such as the blackberries, goji berries can last anything from 20 to 50 years, cranberries as well. Blueberries is around 12 years in a pot, 25 years when you plant in sandy soils before the yields go down. So most of these information, or this information about the various berries and their nutrition requirements are available on our website. But we can gladly discuss it further here as well. Well, it sounds like you have some value add. If a person's coming to berries for Africa, they're not only buying blueberry plants or trees or small trees, they're also just getting value add. And you've touched on a few, and I'd like you to expand on that. You've touched on the fact that when a when a when a grower or farmer is coming to to berries for Africa to buy the berry plants, you also provide a bit of guidance. And I think having the relationship with the berries association of South Africa also just comes as an added value. And you're saying that on the website, there's additional information just in terms of how you grow. So what sets berries for Africa apart, as opposed to other nurseries that are growing berries? Why should we specifically come to you to berries for Africa and get to speak to you for our berry production? It's a good question. I think I think we pride ourselves that we share all our information. So whether you're an existing farmer that has 50 hectares of blueberries or a new potential farmer, we'll share all the information for free, hoping that the customer obviously buy plants from us because that's our business. But we do training as well. And if you don't buy from us, at least we help someone that might help the community in some way where the greater community will benefit. It's clearly if you look at our vision vision statement on our website, you'll also see that we don't try to eliminate poverty, but just by looking at what's going on and Africa specifically, most people are malnutrition. So berries can play a good part in putting some sort of valuable nutrition back into whether you're a home grower or a farmer supplying a nutritional food source to the market. We just want to be part of that. Yeah. So what's next for berries for Africa? I know we've had so many disruptions in a number of industries or sectors since the global pandemic hit. So firstly, what's next for berries for Africa and where do you see the industry around maybe super fruit or berry farming growing in the next maybe three to five years? We work closely with the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fishery to make sure if we bring in plant material from a reputable supplier that it's virus and disease free. So having that said, the aim is to always expand and to look at what's new. What is niche? For example, the last two or three years we focused on niche things such as goji berry and currants, others such as ironia that also has a high antioxidant value and sea buckthorn that has properties that can actually burn fat if that is required. But it also contains all three, four of your omega fatty acids such as your omega three, six, five and nine, which is very rare in most fruits. Most will only contain one or two. Yeah. So we're looking at niche berries such as sea buckthorn to expand and we're also working with groups such as the mining industry that needs to rehabilitate their soils where they can use some of these plants that can produce fruit for 50 years but also nitrogen fixation and also helps with the soil erosion and toxins in the soil that they need to rehabilitate where a plant such as a sea buckthorn and goji berry can be used. Yeah. Before I let you go, Leander, my final question for this evening is what two or three tips can you give to a blueberry grower who's looking to start out farming blueberries and has just listened to everything that you've said this evening? Yeah. What sort of tips or advice could you give to that potential grower? Okay. Read the label. All our plants come, I'll send out to the label. They will bear fruit. Just be patient. Most, I must say, sure, I want to say about 30% of our customers that do not read the labels, burn their plants because they are salt sensitive. They will use chicken manures that are not decomposed well enough or rotten well enough or high amounts of nitrogen or some sorts of fertilizer and they will normally kill the plant within the first year. They'll buy a new plant and eventually say that the plant material is bad quality. When they phone you, they normally tell you they added one kilogram of chicken manures where we feed the plants five grams of fertilizer every six months. So yeah, just check the instructions. They don't need a lot of fertilizers and good quality water is also essential. You can use municipal water that contains chlorine, but if you have a roof or some sort of access to borehole or can harvest water from your roof and gather that some sort of container and add that to the plant, it'll, as with any plant, it'll just be happier with rainwater than water containing chlorines. Wow. Thank you so much, Leander, for your insights this evening. I thoroughly appreciated our conversation and thank you as well for the tips for the farmers. I'm sure they'll come in handy. Thank you, Mbali. It was an honor and a pleasure. Likewise. Thank you. That was Leander Forsler, who's the owner of Berries for Africa. They are a nursery based in Johannesburg and they actually do have other sites. I believe in Cape Town as well, but please do go to the Berries for Africa website to find out all the information with regards to Berries, gooseberries, raspberries, et cetera. They've got various varieties that you could grow in any region, but specifically, what I like about Berries for Africa is that they do give you advice on how to optimally and successfully grow your plants. And so you just not going to any nursery and just buying plants. And in that sense, they leave you cold to dry. But as you heard Leander said, what he said is that you need to read the labels, read the labels on their plants and ensure that you follow his advice. Because the whole intention is for you to grow your plants successfully so that his business can grow as well. But once again, if you need any other information, please go to Berries for Africa and be in touch with Leander. I'm sure he'll give you sufficient information just on how to get started. Thank you so much for watching us this evening. Please join us on Thursday at 8 o'clock as well as support the other podcasts that we have on the farming on private property, not only the farming podcast, but that's it for me tonight. I will see you on Thursday. Take care.