Chapter 7: Small Fruits and Brambles


Chapter 7: Small Fruits and Brambles


CHINESE GOOSEBERRY ("KIWI")
Actinidia chinensis PIanch., family Actinidiaceae

The chinese gooseberry, or yangtao, is produced commercially on a few acres in California. It is produced on a larger scale in New Zealand (where it is called the Kiwi-berry) and in the orient. The name "gooseberry" is derived from the similarity in the taste of the fruit, not to a botanical relationship to Ribes spp. (Menninger 1 966).

Plant:

Chinese gooseberry is a vigorous, deciduous, dioecious shrub that may climb to 25 feet. It has 5-inch oval leaves that are densely hairy underneath. When young, they are bright red but change to brown toward maturity. The vine is usually trained upon a trellis or pergola (Bailey and Topping 1950). The plants are usually spaced about 15 feet apart, 175 per acre (Avent 1959), with one staminate or male plant to 5 to 10 pistillate or female plants. Smith (1961) stated that no female plant should be more than three or four plants away from a male plant.

The brownish oval 1 1/2 to 3-inch long fruit (fig. 76) may be peeled and eaten out of hand with sugar or honey, used in a salad, stewed, preserved, or used in sauces.

A single pistillate plant, if well pollinated, may produce 700 pounds of fruit in a season (Menninger 1966).

[gfx]
FIGURE 76. - Closeup of Chinese gooseberry or kiwi fruit, showing the fuzzy skin.

Inflorescence:

The five- to six-petal flower is white, changing to yellow with age, l 1/2 to 2 inches in diameter, attractive, and fragrant (fig. 77). The ovary is many celled, and it produces the fruit with many seeds. The pistillate flower can be easily recognized by the swollen ovary below the base of the petals. The staminate flowers have a vestigial ovary within the corolla, surrounded by numerous stamens. There are several styles in the pistillate flower, which are also surrounded by numerous stamens that produce no viable pollen (Schroeder and Fletcher 1 967).

[gfx]
FIGURE 77.- Longitudinal section of Chinese gooseberry, or kiwi, flowers, x 4. A, Male; B, female.

Pollination Requirements:

Pollen must be transferred from the flowers on staminate plants to those on pistillate ones, therefore both types of plants must be present in the orchard, and they must flower at the same time.

Pollinators:

Schroeder and Fletcher (1967) stated that wind and insects seem to be the pollinating agents. The general structure of the plant, and the need for numerous pollen grains on the stigma to fertilize the ovules and produce the numerous seeds, indicate that wind would be a poor pollinating agent. The flower seems ideally adapted to bee pollination.

Pollination Recommendations and Practices:

Some growers in California have colonies of honey bees placed in their plantings. The literature indicates that bees are essential.

LITERATURE CITED:

AVENT, K. L.
1959. BERRY FRUIT GROWING IN VICTORIA. Jour. Agr. (Melbourne) 57(10): 647-651, 677.

BAILEY, F.L., and TOPPING, E.
1950. CHINESE GOOSEBERRIESÑTHEIR CULTURE AND USES. New Zeal. Dept. Agr. Bul. 349, 23 pp.

MENNINGER, E. A.
1966. ACTINIDIA CHINENSIS: A PROMISING FRUIT AND SOME RELATED SPECIES. Amer. Hort. Mag. 45: 252-256.

SCHROEDER, C. A., and FLETCHER, W. A.
1967. THE CHINESE GOOSEBERRY (ACTINIDIA CHINENSIS) IN NEW ZEALAND. Econ. Bot. 21: 81 - 92.

SMITH, R. L.
1961. CHINESE GOOSEBERRY. West. Fruit Grower 15(10): 19-20.


Capturé par MemoWeb ŕ partir de http://www.beeculture.com/content/pollination_handbook/chinese.html  le 10/03/2006