April 2021
Sadly, we had to say goodbye to Altus and Chrizelle in April 2021, as they returned to South Africa to be closer to family and pursue new opportunities. They will be missed, but we wish them all the best with their future endeavors.
May 2021
Thankfully, this shift gave Johan and Elana Janse van Vuuren the chance to join our dynamic group of Tswanas. They have been part of our sister company, Blydevallei Citrus, for more than 10 years and bring a lot of expertise and experience to our group. The project is in safe hands.
We started planting citrus trees just before the beginning of May 2021. The first orchards to be fully planted consist of Star Ruby grapefruit and make up about 140 hectares (95 000 trees). It was a challenging start as the Motswana farm workers prepared land for citrus orchards, installed extensive irrigation systems, and planted citrus trees for the very first time! It was incredible to see the team increase their capacity from planting 260 trees on the first day to comfortably handling the planting of 6,000 trees per day today. This is a massive achievement for our team!
June 2021
In June, we continued planting Star Ruby trees but faced some challenges with big rocks that were hard on machinery and cost a lot of downtime. We used this time wisely to complete holding dams 1 and 2, to ease supply to our irrigation systems.
July 2021
In July, we worked on our main entrance and yard. We are proud to share that both are starting to take shape and are looking very good.
August 2021
August saw us starting with the Eureka Lemons and making good progress with ground preparation. Our satellite office on the farm was completed, and we moved into our new work space.
September 2021
A bit more than halfway through September, our bush clearing was standing at 800 hectares, and we started planting our first sweet oranges, Bennie Valencias.
To date, the following have been planted:
- Star Rubies
- Eureka Lemons
- Valencias
