Post-harvest insurance policy pays off

Martos Mangoes has grown from a bare block of land to a thriving orchard of 30,000 R2E2 mango trees, over the past 30 years. Located in Bowen, North Queensland, it’s a family-run operation where everything is done in-house - growing, picking, ripening and packing. Each season their fully automated packing system grades up to 180,000 mangoes for external and internal defects as well as measuring maturity using near infra-red (NIR) spectrometry.

Martos Mangoes supply the domestic market in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria as well as exporting fruit to New Zealand, Italy, United Arab Emirates and Canada.

“Each market demands a different ripeness so that fruit arrive in peak condition to the consumer,” said Martos Mangoes manager, Ben Martin.

“We can be packing up to 10,000 trays of mangoes a day in peak seasons, supplying various different markets so post-harvest rots are just not something we want to mess with.

“We used a hot dip for years, but we were looking at extending post-harvest shelf life. We were doing some insecticide trials with the Syngenta technical team and they said why aren’t you using SCHOLAR® post-harvest?

“That was back in 2005/06 and we’ve been using SCHOLAR® post-harvest ever since. It’s just become part of our post-harvest routine.”

Syngenta Technical Services Lead, Dr Shaun Hood said “SCHOLAR® is an effective, preventative, post-harvest fungicide. Growers can influence post-harvest quality and give SCHOLAR® a fighting chance by adopting a regular in crop fungicide spray program and where necessary, incorporating a range of cultural practices to reduce the spore load settling on the fruit in the paddock.”

“For resistance management, SCHOLAR® is a Group 12 fungicide. As a result of the normal genetic variability in any fungal population it is possible that some naturally occurring individual fungi are resistant to Group 12 fungicides. For this reason, SCHOLAR® fungicide and any other generic product containing the same active ingredient (fludioxonil) is at risk if the same mode of action is used repeatedly on the packing line. To ensure SCHOLAR® fungicide remains effective for the long term, rotating to other post-harvest fungicides with another mode of action is incredibly important”, said Dr Hood.

Martos Mangoes apply SCHOLAR® fungicide at 100 mL/100 L in a hot dip at 52°C within 24 hours of harvesting mangoes. While cheaper post-harvest products are available, Mr Martin said the investment in SCHOLAR® fungicide was twofold; benefiting the quality of his fruit today, while banking on what’s to come in future.

“We support the businesses that do the R&D. Syngenta invests money and time in developing new technologies, so we choose to support their products,” said Mr Martin.

Mr Martin explained that effective management of post-harvest diseases actually starts in the orchard, long before fruit is picked.

“We also do the right thing in the orchard with a fungicide program so using SCHOLAR® post-harvest is pretty cheap insurance really,” said Mr Martin.

SCHOLAR® fungicide maintains post-harvest fruit quality in transport and storage to increase profitability and marketability. As Martos grow, pick, grade, ripen and pack all their own fruit they have full visibility of post-harvest management.

“Some growers only use SCHOLAR® if they are getting a lot of rain, but it’s just part of what we do now,” said Mr Martin.

“We need to be sure we’re putting a quality product into the market. As an industry, the more shelf life we get the better.” 

For more information contact your local Syngenta representative

ENDS

About Syngenta Australia
Syngenta is a leading agriculture company helping to improve global food security by enabling millions of farmers to make better use of available resources. Through world class science and innovative crop solutions, our 28,000 people in over 90 countries are working to transform how crops are grown. We are committed to drive positive change in agriculture and embed sustainability across all aspects of our business.

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