Botryodiplodia sp. - Crops for the Future

grows. Nowadays cherimoya is grown in most countries of the tropical highland and the
subtropics, like Spain, Egypt and Italy. In 1880 the fruit was introduced to Sri Lanka (Ceylon)
where it is cultivated at small scale (MORTON, 1987b).
The cultivation of cherimoya has commercial importance in Chile, Bolivia, Spain, United
States (Florida) and New Zealand (GEORGE and NISSEN, 1991).
The deciduous cherimoya tree is small, erect and somewhat spreading and reaches a height of
5 to 9 m. It has a shrub-like appearance, because of the in ground level frequently divided
stem.
The alternate leaves are 2 to 4 ranked and ovate-lanceolate to elliptical in shape with tiny and
hairy petioles. The leaves are 10 to 25 cm long, 4 to 9 cm wide, slightly hairy on the upper
surface and brownish velvety-tomentose on the underside. The flowers have a good fragrance
and grow extra-axillary mostly solitary and opposite a leaf at the base of a branchlet.
The flowers have a white-pinkish colour and are quite small. The
shape of the fruit is normally conical, oval or somewhat heart
shaped (Figure 6). But the form is very varied due to irregular
pollination. The fruit is 10 to 15 cm long, 5 to 10 cm wide and
has an average weight of 150 to 700 g. In most varieties the
surface is covered with small conical protuberances over the
carpel. The skin of the fruit is thin and has a greenish-yellow
colour when fully ripe. The pulp is snow white, juicy and contains
numerous hard, brown, 1.2 to 2 cm long and glossy seeds. The
Figure 6: Annona
cherimola fruit has a pleasing aroma and delicious, sub acid and fragrant
flavour, like a mix of pineapple and banana (MORTON, 1987b and
DE Q. PINTO et al., 2005). The male and female parts of the flower do not mature
simultaneously. That is the reason of the inadequate natural pollination of cherimoya. To
reach a high fruit set rate the farmers are forced to do hand pollination (MORTON, 1987b).
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