In this area (Robertson, Western Cape) it is very difficult to get a service provider in for staff training. They don’t show up or they are quoting huge amounts of expenses. A local wine cellar has a fully subsidised school for farm workers but that is mainly focussed on vineyards and still than it’s a ‘profit centre’ with relativily high fees.

But this time we were lucky. Marcel Veens, one of the Australian gurus in horticultural advise was visiting South Africa (visiting fruit farmers in Ceres and Elgin) and known with Soekershof he was voluntarily willing to train our staff in basic pruning techniques. That took a whole morning and the staff learned pruning techniques until yet unknown in South Africa.