Polkadraai Farm and its management are acutely aware that our region is water scarce and as such needs to be vigilant when consuming water. For this reason, we employ the following strategies to use as little of our precious resources as possible. We plan our crops water requirement on a weekly basis using current weather data to forecast exactly how much water the plants need. Precise amounts of water are given through drip irrigation (which is more efficient than overhead irrigation) and we use a plastic mulch to cover our strawberry beds. This prevents evaporation and saves a lot of water. Through the use of tunnels, we are able to channel every drop of rain water into our storage dams for use at a later stage when the crop requires more water. 1mm of rain allows us to store 28000 litres of water in our dam. This has allowed us to save millions of litres of water by not withdrawing it from the local eco-system.
Every year, we add organic material back into the soil to replace what the previous season took out. We have our soils tested every 2-3 months by accredited laboratories to ensure that the correct nutrient balance exists and, if not, change our fertiliser recipes so that the plants received the correct nutrients to produce the best strawberries. We employ expert consultants from all over the world to help us make these technical decisions.