From One Tree To 45 Million: South Africa’s Apple Story And What It Means For Mzansi Farmers
On a cool April morning in Cape Town, a small crowd gathered in the garden of Jan van Riebeeck High School. In the centre stood a spindly young apple tree, barely taller than a teenager. To most passers-by it would look like any other sapling. Yet as Tru‑Cape Fruit Marketing’s new variety specialist, Jeanne Fourie, pressed soil around its roots, she was planting 364 years of history back into the ground.
The tree was a Witte Wijnappel – the white wine apple believed to be the very cultivar Jan van Riebeeck himself planted at the Cape in the 1600s. On 17 April 1662, the Dutch commander noted in his diary that he had picked the first two Dutch apples from a five‑foot Witte Wijnappel tree. From that single planting, an entire industry has grown.
This week, South Africa’s apple sector marked its 364th anniversary with the planting of just the fourth known Witte Wijnappel tree in the country, on the same soil where Van Riebeeck’s name now adorns a centenary‑old school. The ceremony, led by Tru‑Cape, was both a history lesson and a quiet statement about the future of fruit farming in the region – Zimbabwe included.
From Diary Entry To A Southern Hemisphere Powerhouse
What began as a curiosity in a colonial garden has become one of Africa’s most sophisticated horticultural engines.
Speaking at the event, Fourie sketched the scale of that journey: South Africa today is home to around 45 million apple trees and produces 1.3 million tonnes of apples a year. That output makes the country the largest apple exporter in the Southern Hemisphere, shipping fruit to more than 100 countries and supporting more than 240,000 jobs across farms, packhouses, logistics and allied services.
“The apple industry makes an extraordinary contribution to our country’s economy,” Fourie said.
For Zimbabwean growers watching from across the Limpopo, these numbers are more than foreign statistics. They’re a picture of what a long‑term, coordinated tree‑crop strategy can achieve under the right mix of varieties, water, cold units, and market access.
FFA Explainer:
Tree crops like apples demand patience. A new block can take five to seven years to reach full production, but once established it can bear fruit for decades. That’s why stories of heritage – like the Witte Wijnappel – matter. They remind us that today’s exports were yesterday’s experiments.
Tracking Down A Lost Apple
The return of the Witte Wijnappel to Cape Town wasn’t an accident or a marketing gimmick. It was the result of years of detective work by Tru‑Cape’s quality assurance manager Henk Griessel – himself an alumnus of Jan van Riebeeck High School – and his colleague Buks Nel.
The pair dug deep into the archives of the Vereenigde Oost‑Indische Compagnie (VOC) and old illustrated pomological texts, following clues across languages and centuries. Their trail eventually led to a private garden between the Rhine and Maas rivers in the Netherlands, where they discovered two surviving Witte Wijnappel trees.
Those trees had outlived war and neglect.
“Sadly, the area was heavily bombed during the Second World War, and it is a true miracle that the apple trees survived,” Fourie told guests.
Getting the cultivar home was another challenge. South Africa’s strict plant import regulations are designed to keep out pests and diseases that could devastate orchards. After careful phytosanitary work, limited plant material was cleared and successfully established in the Western Cape.
Until this month, only three Witte Wijnappel trees grew in South Africa: one at Tru‑Cape’s heritage orchard in Grabouw, one at Babylonstoren, and one in the Cape Gardens. The Jan van Riebeeck planting makes four.
“Planting a fourth tree at a school that is celebrating its 100th birthday, and is named after the man who planted the first apple tree at the Cape, is deeply symbolic,” Fourie said. “It reminds us how time, faith and patience can transform something small into something truly significant.”
The ceremony also doubled as a tribute to Griessel’s contribution to South Africa’s apple and pear industry.
“With experience in both academic and technical fields, he is the author of a long list of publications and the recipient of several industry awards. Planting the historic apple tree in his alma mater’s garden was truly a special celebration,” Fourie added.
Apples, Identity And A School Turning 100
For Jan van Riebeeck High School, which is celebrating its centenary, the planting stitched together several strands of identity: a Dutch founder, a Cape horticultural legacy, and a modern South African institution preparing pupils for a changing world.
Tru‑Cape managing director Roelf Pienaar used the moment to salute both the industry and the school.
“The South African apple industry stands as a remarkable example of resilience, innovation, and global competitiveness,” he said. “From a single tree to a world‑leading export industry, it is a story we can all be proud of. We also extend our heartfelt congratulations to Jan van Riebeeck High School on its centenary. May this tree serve as a lasting symbol of growth, heritage, and future success.”
The campus has been quietly greening for months. Alongside the Witte Wijnappel, renowned heritage gardener Gwen Fagan planted a Rosa centifolia, believed to be among the first rose types cultivated in South Africa. Around 100 shade trees have also been added across the grounds, a living classroom in photosynthesis and patience for every pupil who walks by.
Pienaar offered a simple ask to mark the day: that South Africans take a moment on 17 April to enjoy a locally grown apple and reflect on the sector behind it.
“As we celebrate 364 years of apples in South Africa, we invite everyone to take a moment on 17 April to enjoy one of our delicious locally grown apples and share in the pride of an industry that continues to grow from strength to strength,” he said.
Lessons For Zimbabwe’s Budding Orchardists
The Witte Wijnappel story might seem Cape‑centric, but the lessons travel north easily – especially into Zimbabwean valleys where young apple orchards are quietly expanding.
In the Nyanga and Vumba highlands, farmers are experimenting with new apple plantings, banking on altitude, chill hours, and access to local and regional markets. For them, South Africa’s 364‑year arc offers practical signposts:
- Start modestly, think long‑term. From one tree to 45 million, the growth curve was built on generations of grafting, selection, and patience.
- Protect plant health. South Africa’s arduous route to re‑import a single heritage cultivar underlines how seriously phytosanitary barriers must be treated. Zimbabwe’s own plant health authorities will need similar vigilance as more fruit varieties cross borders.
- Invest in people, not just trees. Specialists like Fourie, Griessel and Nel – bridging science, archives and orchards – show how critical human capital is. For Zimbabwe under NDS1 and AU Agenda 2063, building local pomology expertise will be as important as importing the right rootstocks.
South Africa’s apple success has also been underpinned by strong value‑chain coordination – nurseries, research stations, packhouses, cold chains, and aggressive market development into more than 100 countries. Zimbabwean growers exploring apples or pears will need to think beyond the orchard gate: packhouse standards, export protocols, and branding all count if fruit is to reach Nairobi, Dubai or even Johannesburg at a premium.
FFA has previously reported on how smallholders can plug into higher‑value fruit chains through contracts, co‑ops, and shared infrastructure. The Witte Wijnappel stands as a reminder that those systems can last centuries when nurtured well.
Heritage As A Compass For Future‑Focused Farming
What’s striking about Tru‑Cape’s gesture is that it looks backwards and forwards at once.
On one side, there is the romance of tracing a cultivar through VOC cargo lists and Dutch gardens, and honouring a veteran scientist in his old school yard. On the other, there is a very modern industry reality: a sector that must keep innovating on varieties, climate resilience, and market diversification to hold its place as the Southern Hemisphere’s top apple exporter.
Heritage cultivars like Witte Wijnappel don’t compete with high‑density Gala or Pink Lady blocks on yield. But they do something just as important:
- Anchor an industry’s identity and story.
- Offer genetic diversity that might prove useful under changing climates.
- Connect young people – the next generation of agronomists, marketers, and farm owners – to the long view that tree crops demand.
For women and youth entering horticulture across Mzansi and Zimbabwe, these stories carry a quiet encouragement. You don’t plant an apple tree for a quick win; you plant it for your children to walk under. In a policy world framed by five‑year plans and export targets, that kind of thinking is radical in its own way.
As pupils at Jan van Riebeeck file past the new sapling this term, few will remember the precise tonnage or job figures Fourie recited. But many will remember that someone once planted a small, fragile tree on a windy Cape promontory – and that, three and a half centuries later, it feeds families and livelihoods across the world.
The real question, for both South Africa and Zimbabwe, is simple: which trees are we planting now – literally and figuratively – that people will still be celebrating, and exporting from, in the year 2390?
About The Author
