Cherimoya - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Cherimoya is the fruit of the species Annona cherimola
Annona cherimola
Annona cherimola , and originally called Chirimuya by the Inca people who lived where it was growing in the Andes of South America, is an edible fruit bearing species of the genus Annona from the family Annonaceae is now widely cultivated mostly for its sweet fruits that share the name...

, which is native to the Andes

Andes

The Andes is the world's longest continental mountain range. It is a continual range of highlands along the western coast of South America. This range is about long, about to wide , and of an average height of about .Along its length, the Andes is split into several ranges, which are separated...

. Today they are grown throughout South and Central America.

Description

Cherimoya is a deciduous or semi-evergreen shrub

Shrub

A shrub or bush is distinguished from a tree by its multiple stems and shorter height, usually under 5–6 m tall. A large number of plants may become either shrubs or trees, depending on the growing conditions they experience...

or small tree

Tree

A tree is a perennial woody plant. It is most often defined as a woody plant that has many secondary branches supported clear of the ground on a single main stem or trunk with clear apical dominance. A minimum height specification at maturity is cited by some authors, varying from 3 m to...

reaching 7 m (22 feet) tall. The leaves

Leaf

A leaf is an organ of a vascular plant, as defined in botanical terms, and in particular in plant morphology. Foliage is a mass noun that refers to leaves as a feature of plants....

are alternate, simple, oblong-lanceolate, 7–15 cm long and 6–10 cm broad. The flower

Flower

A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants . The biological function of a flower is to effect reproduction, usually by providing a mechanism for the union of sperm with eggs...

s are produced in small clusters, each flower 2–3 cm across, with six petals, yellow-brown, often spotted purple at the base.

The fruit

Fruit

In broad terms, a fruit is a structure of a plant that contains its seeds.The term has different meanings dependent on context. In non-technical usage, such as food preparation, fruit normally means the fleshy seed-associated structures of certain plants that are sweet and edible in the raw state,...

is oval, often slightly oblate, 10–20 cm long and 7–10 cm diameter, with a smooth or slightly tuberculated skin. The fruit flesh is white and creamy, and has numerous dark brown seed

Seed

A seed is a small embryonic plant enclosed in a covering called the seed coat, usually with some stored food. It is the product of the ripened ovule of gymnosperm and angiosperm plants which occurs after fertilization and some growth within the mother plant...

s embedded in it. Mark Twain

Mark Twain

Samuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...

called the cherimoya "the most delicious fruit known to men." The fruit is fleshy and soft, sweet, white in color, with a sherbet-like texture, which gives it its secondary name, custard apple.

Some characterize the flavor as a blend of banana

Banana

Banana is the common name for herbaceous plants of the genus Musa and for the fruit they produce. Bananas come in a variety of sizes and colors when ripe, including yellow, purple, and red....

, pineapple

Pineapple

Pineapple is the common name for a tropical plant and its edible fruit, which is actually a multiple fruit consisting of coalesced berries. It was given the name pineapple due to its resemblance to a pine cone. The pineapple is by far the most economically important plant in the Bromeliaceae...

, papaya

Papaya

The papaya , papaw, or pawpaw is the fruit of the plant Carica papaya, the sole species in the genus Carica of the plant family Caricaceae...

, peach, and strawberry

Strawberry

Fragaria is a genus of flowering plants in the rose family, Rosaceae, commonly known as strawberries for their edible fruits. Although it is commonly thought that strawberries get their name from straw being used as a mulch in cultivating the plants, the etymology of the word is uncertain. There...

. Others describe it as tasting like commercial bubblegum

Bubblegum

Bubblegum is a type of elastic chewing gum, designed to be blown out of the mouth as a bubble.-History:In 1928, Walter Diemer, an accountant for the Fleer Chewing Gum Company in Philadelphia, was experimenting with new gum recipes. One recipe was found to be less sticky than regular chewing gum,...

. Similar in size to a grapefruit

Grapefruit

The grapefruit , is a subtropical citrus tree known for its sour fruit, an 18th-century hybrid first bred in Barbados. When found, it was named the "forbidden fruit"; it has also been misidentified with the pomelo or shaddock , one of the parents of this hybrid, the other being sweet orange The...

, it has large, glossy, dark seeds that are easily removed. When ripe, the skin is green and gives slightly to pressure, similar to the avocado

Avocado

The avocado is a tree native to Central Mexico, classified in the flowering plant family Lauraceae along with cinnamon, camphor and bay laurel...

Etymology

The name originates from the Quechua

Quechua languages

Quechua is a Native South American language family and dialect cluster spoken primarily in the Andes of South America, derived from an original common ancestor language, Proto-Quechua. It is the most widely spoken language family of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, with a total of probably...

word chirimuya, which means "cold seeds," because the plant grows at high altitudes and the seeds will germinate at higher altitudes.. In Bogotá, Colombia, the fruit is commonly known as chirimoya, a mixture of the modern and Quechua names.

Cultivation and uses

Many people often chill the cherimoya and eat it with a spoon, which has earned it another nickname; the ice cream fruit.

Indigenous cultures

The Moche

Moche

'The Moche civilization flourished in northern Peru from about 100 AD to 800 AD, during the Regional Development Epoch. While this issue is the subject of some debate, many scholars contend that the Moche were not politically organized as a monolithic empire or state...

culture of Peru had a fascination with agriculture and represented fruits and vegetables in their art. Cherimoyas were often depicted in their ceramics.

Fruit production - crops

The tree thrives throughout the tropics at altitudes of 1300 to 2600 m (4,265.1 to 8,530.2 ft). Though sensitive to frost, it must have periods of cool temperatures or the tree will gradually go dormant. The indigenous inhabitants of the Andes

Andes

say that although the cherimoya cannot stand snow, it does like to see it in the distance. It is cultivated in many places throughout the Americas

Americas

The Americas, or America , are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World. In English, the plural form the Americas is often used to refer to the landmasses of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions, while the singular form America is primarily...

, including California, where it was introduced in 1871, and Hawaii. In the Mediterranean region, it is cultivated mainly in southern Spain, where it was introduced before 1751 in the Motril

Motril

Motril is a town and municipality on the Mediterranean coast in the province of Granada, Spain.Motril is the second largest town in the province, with a population of 59,163 as of 2008...

, Almuñecar

Almuñécar

Almuñécar is a municipality in the Spanish Autonomous Region of Andalusia on the Costa Tropical between Nerja and Motril . It has a subtropical climate...

and Malaga

Málaga

Málaga is a city and a municipality in the Autonomous Community of Andalusia, Spain. With a population of 568,507 in 2010, it is the second most populous city of Andalusia and the sixth largest in Spain. This is the southernmost large city in Europe...

areas, from where it was carried to Italy and lsla de Madeira

Madeira

Madeira is a Portuguese archipelago that lies between and , just under 400 km north of Tenerife, Canary Islands, in the north Atlantic Ocean and an outermost region of the European Union...

(Portugal), but now can be also found in Morocco, Tunisia (only in the orchards of Hammamet), Lebanon

Lebanon

Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...

, Egypt

Egypt

Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

, Cyprus

Cyprus

Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...

, and Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

. The first planting in Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

was in 1797 and it became a favored crop in the Province of Reggio Calabria

Reggio Calabria

Reggio di Calabria , commonly known as Reggio Calabria or Reggio, is the biggest city and the most populated comune of Calabria, southern Italy, and is the capital of the Province of Reggio Calabria and seat of the Council of Calabrian government.Reggio is located on the "toe" of the Italian...

. It is also grown in Taiwan, Australia and New Zealand.

Large fruit which are uniformly green, without cracks or mostly browned skin, are best. Unripe cherimoyas will ripen at room temperature, when they will yield to gentle pressure. Ripe fruits keep better in the refrigerator.

Different varieties have different flavors, textures, and shapes. Shapes can range from imprint areoles, flat areoles, slight bump or point areoles, full areoles, and combinations of these shapes. The flavor of the flesh ranges from mellow sweet to tangy or acidic sweet, with variable suggestions of pineapple, banana, pear, papaya, strawberry or other berry, and apple, depending on the variety. The usual characterization of flavor is "pineapple/banana" flavor, similar to the flavor of the Monstera deliciosa
Monstera deliciosa
Monstera deliciosa is a creeping vine native to tropical rainforests of southern Mexico south to Colombia.Common names include Ceriman, Swiss Cheese Plant , Fruit Salad Plant, Monster fruit, Monsterio Delicio, Monstereo, Mexican Breadfruit, Monstera, split-leaf philodendron, Locust and Wild Honey,...

fruit.

When the fruit is soft-ripe/fresh-ripe and still has the fresh, fully mature greenish/greenish-yellowish skin color, the texture is like that of a soft-ripe pear and papaya. If the skin is allowed to turn fully brown, yet the flesh has not fermented or gone "bad", then the texture can be custard-like. Often, when the skin turns brown at room temperature, the fruit is no longer good for human consumption. Also, the skin turns brown if it has been under normal refrigeration for too long - a day or two maybe.

Fresh cherimoya contains about 15% sugar (about 60kcal/100g) and some vitamin C

Vitamin C

Vitamin C or L-ascorbic acid or L-ascorbate is an essential nutrient for humans and certain other animal species. In living organisms ascorbate acts as an antioxidant by protecting the body against oxidative stress...

(up to 20 mg/100g). Cherimoya and other members of the Annonaceae family also contain small amounts of neurotoxic alkaloids, such as annonacin

Annonacin

Annonacin is a chemical found in some fruits such as the guanabana . It is a member of the class of compounds known as acetogenins...

, which appear to be linked to atypical Parkinsonism

Parkinsonism

Parkinsonism is a neurological syndrome characterized by tremor, hypokinesia, rigidity, and postural instability. The underlying causes of parkinsonism are numerous, and diagnosis can be complex...

in Guadeloupe

Guadeloupe

Guadeloupe is an archipelago located in the Leeward Islands, in the Lesser Antilles, with a land area of 1,628 square kilometres and a population of 400,000. It is the first overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department. As with the other overseas departments, Guadeloupe...

. The seeds are poisonous if crushed open. An extractive of the bark can induce paralysis if injected.

Pollination

The flowers are hermaphroditic

Hermaphrodite

In biology, a hermaphrodite is an organism that has reproductive organs normally associated with both male and female sexes.Many taxonomic groups of animals do not have separate sexes. In these groups, hermaphroditism is a normal condition, enabling a form of sexual reproduction in which both...

and have a mechanism to avoid self pollination. The short-lived flowers open as female, then progress to a later, male stage in a matter of hours. This requires a separate pollinator

Pollinator

A pollinator is the biotic agent that moves pollen from the male anthers of a flower to the female stigma of a flower to accomplish fertilization or syngamy of the female gamete in the ovule of the flower by the male gamete from the pollen grain...

that not only can collect the pollen

Pollen

Pollen is a fine to coarse powder containing the microgametophytes of seed plants, which produce the male gametes . Pollen grains have a hard coat that protects the sperm cells during the process of their movement from the stamens to the pistil of flowering plants or from the male cone to the...

from flower

Flower

s in the male stage, but also deposit it in flowers in the female stage. It is acknowledged that there must be such a natural pollinator, and while so far studies of insects in the cherimoya's native region have been inconclusive, some form of beetle

Beetle

Coleoptera is an order of insects commonly called beetles. The word "coleoptera" is from the Greek , koleos, "sheath"; and , pteron, "wing", thus "sheathed wing". Coleoptera contains more species than any other order, constituting almost 25% of all known life-forms...

is suspected (Schroeder 1995).

Quite often, the female flower is receptive in the early part of the first day, but pollen is not produced in the male stage until the late afternoon of the second day. Honey bee

Honey bee

Honey bees are a subset of bees in the genus Apis, primarily distinguished by the production and storage of honey and the construction of perennial, colonial nests out of wax. Honey bees are the only extant members of the tribe Apini, all in the genus Apis...

s are not good pollinators, for example, because their bodies are too large to fit between the fleshy petals of the female flower. Female flowers have the petals only partially separated, and the petals separate wide when they become male flowers. So the bees pick up pollen from the male flowers, but are unable to transfer this pollen to the female flowers. The small beetles which pollinate cherimoya in its land of origin are much smaller than bees.

For fruit production outside the cherimoya's native region, cultivators must either rely upon the wind to spread pollen in dense orchards or else pollinate flowers by hand

Hand pollination

Hand pollination is a technique used when natural, or open pollination is insufficient or undesirable. The most common techniques are for crops such as cucurbits, which may exhibit poor pollination by fruit abortion, fruit deformity or poor maturation...

. Complicating matters is the notoriously short lifespan of cherimoya pollen.

Postharvest handling

The optimum temperature for storage is 8–12 °C (46.4–53.6 F), depending on cultivar, ripeness stage, and duration, with an optimum relative humidity of 90-95%.

Exposure to ethylene

Ethylene

Ethylene is a gaseous organic compound with the formula . It is the simplest alkene . Because it contains a carbon-carbon double bond, ethylene is classified as an unsaturated hydrocarbon. Ethylene is widely used in industry and is also a plant hormone...

(100 ppm for one to two days) accelerates ripening of mature-green cherimoya and other Annona
Annona
Annona is a genus of flowering plants in the pawpaw/sugar apple family, Annonaceae. It is the second largest genus in the family after Guatteria, containing approximately 110 species of mostly neotropical and afrotropical trees and shrubs....

fruits; they can ripen in about five days if kept at 15 to 20 °C (59 to 68 F). Ethylene removal can be helpful in retarding ripening of mature-green fruits.

External links

CHERLA Research Project (EU). Promotion of Sustainable Cherimoya Production Systems in Latin America through the Characterisation, Conservation and Use of Local Germplasm Diversity.
Schroeder, C. A. (1995). Pollination Strategy in the Cherimoya.
Cherimoya website
Owens, K. J.(2003). Genetic diversity of Annona cherimola Mill. in south central Bolivia.
Scheldeman, X. (2002). Distribution and potential of cherimoya (Annona cherimola Mill.) and highland papayas (Vasconcellea spp.) in Ecuador
Bridg, Hannia: Micropropagation and Determination of the in vitro Stability of Annona cherimola Mill. and Annona muricata L.
Postharvest Technology Cherimoya Produce Facts

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