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Citrus cultivation

Published on 29/11/2013 - Published by Cirad
FruiTrop n°216 , Page From 74 to 75
Price : EUR 10,00

The world’s leading fruit crop grown between the latitudes 40° N and 40° S, citrus fruits were domesticated in Asia. Ancient texts refer to sour citrus fruits in India from 800 BC onwards, and mandarins, oranges and grapefruit in China at the time of Confucius. Trade and military conquests contributed strongly to the spread of citrus. This was first overland via Asia Minor and the Middle East as Roman and Greek influence spread (citron fruit, bitter orange) and then through Islam and the Crusades (sour citrus). The citron fruit was the first species grown in the Mediterranean several centuries before the Common Era. New citrus fruits such as sweet oranges were introduced around the Mediterranean basin in the sixteenth Century thanks to Portuguese navigators and the possibility of direct maritime trade with the Far East and China. These species were then disseminated in Africa and America. The first mandarins were introduced in the Mediterranean region much later. The fruit is mentioned at the beginning of the nineteenth Century in Italy and not until 1850 in North Africa. However, the Mediterranean has been an important diversification zone for the three most important economic species—orange, mandarin and lemon. The grapefruit, C. paradisi, a natural hybrid of shaddock, is one of the rare commercial citrus fruits to have originated in the Caribbean.