Piura, Peru August 3, 2009

Mon, Aug 03, 2009 at 11:26:06 AM

Early morning we had a busy agenda of visiting mango growers. We started the day visiting Saturno SA located in Solsol, San Isidro. I remember in 2002, when I had just arrived at Fairchild, our friend Paul Barclay was in charge of the project and he came looking for the ‘Ataulfo’ variety. We distributed about 200 budwood sticks of ‘Ataulfo’ to him. Nine years later, they have expanded their production of ‘Ataulfo’ and have 125 Ha in production which will soon expand to 200 Ha with high density. They are keeping their trees up to 2 meter high and planting at 6x4 meters in order to increase size of the fruit. Saturno also produces avocado, paprika, and pepper. I was so satisfied to see the results of one single tree in our living collection turning into 125 Ha of trees.

In the afternoon, we visited a new mango operation. We visited Sunshine Export S.A.C. Miguel Wong, one of the owners, invited me to have a tour. They export more than 6,500 metric tons a year of fresh mangos to the United States, Europe and China. Their mangos come from their own farms and from small and medium-sized producers organized together as self-sustainable farmers, with organic certification. A few miles from the farm, we visited their packing plant which has capacity for 40,000 boxes per day. They have hydrothermal equipment which is required for shipment to the United States. This process consists of submerging the mangos for 75 to 90 minutes at 116F. The process has is approved by the sanitary authority of the US (APHIS). There is an annex to the packing plant which is the process operation. Here they dry all local fruit including mangos, pineapple and bananas. They also produce frozen dices for salads, pineapple, banana, papaya and avocado slices.

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