Dalpane Vivai Argentina is kiwifruit plant nursery with more than eight years of experience in the regional market, along with 30 years in the European market for its Italian parent company.

Based in the Sierra de los Padres (Mar del Plata), the nursery mainly produces the common Hayward variety, as well as the exclusive Summerkiwi variety that has proven popular on the old continent.

"Recently we started on the path to project Babykiwi and Dori in the zone," general manager Alejandro Patrone told www.freshfruitportal.com.

He said Dalpane Vivai was the only grower of in-vitro kiwifruit plants in the country, guaranteeing the uniformity, health and productive potential" of plants

En Argentina son el único vivero productor de plantas de kiwi de origen InVitro. Según Patrone “eso garantiza la uniformidad, sanidad y potencial productivo de nuestras plantas.

Internationally, the company also exports bare root plants to Uruguay and Mexico, and its major European customer is the cooperative Apofruit Italia, which distributes the fruit throughout the community.

He added there was a "notable growth" for the kiwifruit business in Argentina.

"It is important to highlight that in the beginning it was considered an exotic fruit, which was cultivated with very little knowledge and with techniques inherited from some entrepreneurs that had known kiwifruit in the East or Europe," Patrone said.

"Now, a decade later, Mar del Plata - our base city - is the kiwifruit capital, with 50% of the country's plantations," he said.

Psa-free plants

Argentina's National Agri-food Health and Qualtiy Service (SENASA) certified the nursery and production as free of disease Pseudomonas syringae pv. actinidiae (Psa) in mid-July.

"For us this is of great importance because it ratifies the efforts and seriousness with which the nursery focuses its production, the care in processes and the health of our products," Patrone said.

"Independent of this valuable certification, it is important to highlight that Dalpane Vivai always complied with phytosanitary requirements, ruling out the presence of Psa in its crops."

The certification comes as part of actions relating to Resolution 589/2013 which declared a state of Phytosanitary Alert across the whole Argentine territory regarding Psa, whereby a system of surveillance and monitoring must be implemented for kiwifruit orchards and nurseries in order to detect any presence of the disease early.

Patrone clarified that this alert was 100% preventative, as the disease had been detected in "neighboring countries", namely Chile.

"But it's not problematic in the country [Argentina]," he said.

The process of achieving certification involved taking several samples of organic nursery material since the start of 2014, with investigation taking place in SENASA labs.

"This certification is new in the country, as it is also new to be speaking about Psa in Argentina.

"This year, in our nursery they took samples on four occasions. We understood these tests would be undertaken periodically, to renew our commitment and have control over our all our harvests.

"As is public knowledge, the maximum point of exposure for this disease happened two years ago in Europe, where our company is from. There, the losses at the production level, both for nurseries and growers, were in the millions [of euros].

He said that since then, even though bacteriological studies were taken on the company's products, they have still been increasing.

The executive concluded by emphasizing it was prohibited to import kiwifruit plants in Argentina, so that the "catastrophe" of Psa in other countries does not repeat itself on Argentine soil.

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Photo: Dalpane Vivai Argentina

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