Tru-Cape and Hortgro gift the oldest recorded apple tree to historic farm Babylonstoren In 1662, on the 17th of April, the first apple was picked at the Cape. It was the Witte Wijnappel. In 1692, Babylonstoren Farm was granted to…
By Elise-Marie Steenkamp Hortgro’s 2026 Bursary Function celebrates the young people shaping the industry’s next chapter There is a particular kind of optimism that runs through South African agriculture — the belief that no matter how hard a season has…
While we don’t know for how many years the Witte Wijn apple, the first-ever apple variety picked in the Cape in 1662, was lost, estimates by Tru-Cape Fruit Marketing’s sleuths suggest it may have been hundreds of years. Since returning…