Annona Species Monograph.pdf - Crops for the Future

Chapter 4. Major and Minor Production Areas
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representing ca. 90% of the total area of cherimoya in Spain (Farré and
Hermoso, 1997). However, Agustin (1997) commented that the production
area of cherimoya in Spain was 1800 ha, which is approximately 55% of that
reported by Guirardo et al. (2001) in the year of 1999. Up-to-date data show
a total cultivated area of 3,090 ha of cherimoya in Spain, with 99% under
irrigation, which suggests a total production of approximately 29,000 MT
(Gómez, G.B., Embassy of Spain in Brazil, July 2000, personal
communication).
Peru had an area of 1975 ha in 1998 producing 14,606 MT and a yield of 7.4
MT/ha. The Nor Oriental del Marañon is the most important producing
province with 665 ha of cultivated cherimoya (Vargas, A.I., Oficina de
Información Agraria del Peru, July 2000, personal communication).
Chile had 785 ha in production in 1996 (Agustín, 1997). In 1998, 1,152 ha
were reputed to be in production (Furche, C., Director of the Oficina de
Estudios y Politicas Agrarias del Chile - ODEPA, July 2000, personal
communication ), which represents a 68% increase in two years.
Carlos Furche indicated that in the same year (1998), Peru had an area of
1,800 ha, Bolivia 1,000 ha, Ecuador 700 ha and Australia 500 ha Crane and
Campbell (1990) and Grossberger (1999) commented that California had
100-120 ha of cherimoya, with an estimated production of 453 MT in the
1989-90 season. Crane and Campbell (1990) also noted that Thailand, the
Dominican Republic and Costa Rica were important exporters to the USA.
Soursop is cultivated in many tropical areas in countries such as Angola,
Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Jamaica, India, Mexico, Panama, Peru,
USA (Porto Rico), Venezuela and S.E. Asia (Pinto and Silva, 1996). There is
a dearth of production data for most of the South, Central and North
American countries, except Mexico, Venezuela and Brazil, which seem to be
the major producing countries of this species.
Mexico is the most important soursop producing country in the Americas and
in 1990 had an area of 598 ha, with production of 4,087 MT. Rebollar-
Alviter et al. (1997) estimated the cultivated area in Mexico at 4,890 ha in
1996, which means that in six years the cultivated area had increased nine
fold. On the other hand, Hernández and Angel (1997) stated that the Mexican
area planted to soursop in the same year was equivalent to 5,915 ha with a
production of 34,900 MT, easily the largest in the world. However, the
yield/ha had decreased from 6.8 MT/ha in 1990 to 5.9 MT/ha in 1996.
Nayarit, with approximately 380 ha, is the most important province for
soursop production in Mexico.