Fruit freedom is difficult now, and it was even more difficult before

This article is excerpted from "The Code of Life", with some omissions

Yesterday, I heard about strawberry-flavored tomatoes for the first time. Have you ever bought one? Are they more expensive than ordinary tomatoes?

In recent years, the prices of some fruits in China have remained high, and ordinary families can no longer afford them. Being able to buy expensive fruits at will, achieving "cherry freedom", "strawberry freedom" and "durian freedom", is seen by contemporary urban young people as a reflection of wealth and strength.

In foreign countries, popular fruits such as avocados, cherries, and blueberries are also very expensive. Young people who pursue fashion love to post photos of salads made with these fruits online to show their exquisite and healthy lives, while also quietly showing off their wealth.

So why are the prices of these fruits so high? How can we achieve fruit freedom?

Sky-high priced fruits have existed since ancient times

The pursuit of delicious fruits is not exclusive to modern people. Rare fruits were also priceless treasures to the ancients. Even the king could not resist the temptation of small fruits. The story of "King Liang's love of fruits" is recorded in "Yu Li Zi". King Liang sent envoys to the State of Wu to seek delicious fruits. After getting oranges and tangerines, he was still not satisfied and continued to ask for citrons. However, he did not know that the citrons that looked good were actually very sour.

When Emperor Wu of Han led his troops to attack Nanyue, he did not forget to bring back 12 banana trees, more than a hundred longan trees, lychees, betel nuts, olives, and citrus trees, and planted them in the Fuli Palace in Chang'an; in order to make his concubine smile, Emperor Xuanzong of Tang rushed to transport fresh lychees from Lingnan (some say Bashu).

Foreign kings were also crazy about fruits. At the end of the 15th century, Columbus brought pineapples from Brazil back to Europe. This tropical fruit was difficult to grow in Europe with a cold climate and could only be imported from South America at a very high price. King Charles II of England received a pineapple from a gardener. He was so delighted that he ordered the painter to paint the scene of him receiving the pineapple and pass it on to future generations, just like modern people take photos and post them on WeChat Moments after receiving expensive gifts.

In Europe at that time, the highest-level banquets must have a pineapple, but even the nobles could hardly afford the high price of pineapples, so the pineapple rental industry came into being. The host of the banquet could rent a pineapple to place on the dining table as a decoration and return it after the banquet.

Since pineapples were a luxury item that everyone coveted, many decorations at the time were made in the shape of pineapples. Even today, the British royal family still uses knives and forks with pineapple patterns, and a few pineapples are placed on the table as decoration during state banquets.

Diagram: Pineapples, which are very common now, were once extremely expensive fruits in Europe hundreds of years ago (Drawing: Fu Kunyuan)

In modern times, with the development of transportation, ordinary people can now enjoy fruits that were once worth a fortune in ancient times. Moreover, modern people are not satisfied with the existing fruit varieties and want to explore more rare and exotic fruits, so the profession of "fruit hunter" came into being.

"Fruit Hunter" visits virgin forests and rural markets in countries around the world to taste those little-known local wild fruits and discover more fruit resources in nature.

Fruit resources, survival in difficult situations

In addition to exploring wild fruit resources, breeding and improving existing fruits is also a good strategy for developing fruit resources. my country is vast and rich in resources, with a wide variety of fruits, from cherries in the north to lychees in the south.

Unfortunately, China has long neglected the breeding of native fruits, resulting in insufficient development of local fruit resources and loss of wild fruit resources. However, after careful breeding, the Chinese native fruits introduced from abroad have become more valuable than domestic fruit varieties.

The kiwifruit (Actinidia chinensis), native to China, is such an example. In the early 20th century, this wild fruit was favored by foreigners who came to China for its sweet and sour taste. The UK, the US, and New Zealand all introduced kiwifruit. However, the UK and the US did not know that kiwifruit, like ginkgo, has male and female plants, so they only introduced male plants that do not bear fruit. Only New Zealand was lucky enough to get a bag of seeds that contained both male and female plants, and successfully cultivated kiwifruit.

In the 1930s, New Zealanders named one of their artificially bred kiwifruit varieties Kiwi Fruit because its furry appearance resembled the local kiwi bird. When this kiwifruit was sold to China, its name was translated as "kiwi fruit" and its price was much higher than that of domestic kiwifruit.

Although New Zealand's kiwifruit breeding is already at the world's leading level, New Zealand agronomists are still not satisfied. In recent years, agronomists from New Zealand and other countries have been looking for various wild kiwifruit varieties in the virgin forests across my country, hoping to use them to cultivate excellent kiwifruit varieties.

On the other hand, although kiwifruit cultivation is also being scaled up and industrialized in China, and China is currently the largest producer of kiwifruit, wild kiwifruit resources are gradually disappearing due to the destruction of the natural environment, which is undoubtedly a huge loss for kiwifruit breeding. At the same time, high-quality wild kiwifruit resources are flowing abroad and being monopolized by foreign countries, which is even more detrimental to the domestic kiwifruit industry.

China's citrus industry has also faced similar difficulties. Citrus has a 4,000-year history of cultivation in China, with a wide variety of varieties. The world's first monograph on citrus cultivation was the Song Dynasty's "Ju Lu", which recorded the cultivation methods and characteristics of 27 types of citrus in Wenzhou, Zhejiang.

kiwi

The soft-jujube kiwifruit, native to Northeast China, is called "round jujube" by locals.

Japan has a limited supply of native citrus fruits, and even imported Wenzhou mandarin oranges from China during the Tang Dynasty. But more than 1,000 years later, Japan has vigorously developed its citrus industry and has cultivated high-quality citrus varieties such as Ehime No. 28, Shiranui, Harumi, Sweet Harun, Amakusa, and Iyokan. These citrus fruits are large and sweet, far better than most citrus fruits native to China.

Fortunately, China has thousands of years of experience in citrus cultivation and breeding. Facing the challenge from Japan, China is also actively cultivating new and excellent citrus varieties. Chinese citrus farmers hybridized the two citrus varieties of Nanxiang and Amakusa produced in Japan to cultivate a new citrus variety, Red Beauty, which is "better than the original" with bright colors, extremely high sweetness, freshness and juiciness, far exceeding the original Japanese variety.

China has also reached the world's leading level in the cultivation and breeding of fruits such as strawberries. The Dandong strawberry, which has been very popular in the market in recent years, is actually the Hongyan strawberry introduced from Japan by Dandong, Liaoning. Because Dandong's climate and soil are very suitable for strawberry cultivation, the Hongyan strawberry grown locally is larger and sweeter than the one produced in Japan, and has become a well-known brand.

Another best-selling variety, the Milk Strawberry, has a slightly milky flavor that makes people rave about it. Some people even say that this kind of strawberry has a milky flavor because it is watered with milk when grown. In fact, the Milk Strawberry is a variant of the Japanese strawberry Tochiotome introduced to Liaoning. Its official variety name is Moriken No. 99.

Tangerine

Dandong Strawberries (Photo: Yin Ye)

Fruit diseases are a global problem

In addition to breeding, disease control is also an important issue in the fruit planting industry. Once a plant in an orchard is diseased, the disease may spread to the entire orchard, resulting in poor harvest or even total failure.

The fruit disease with the widest spread and the most infected species is fruit anthrax. Human anthrax is caused by Bacillus anthraci, which causes the patient's skin to become necrotic and black, and in severe cases, life is in danger; fruit anthrax can also cause the leaves and twigs of fruit trees to turn black and wither, and the fruit to fall off. In severe cases, it can cause the death of the entire plant, but fruit anthrax is not caused by Bacillus anthraci, but by the fungus of the genus Colletotrichum.

The pathogen can be transmitted through humans, animals, rain, wind and insects, and invade through the stomata or wounds of plants or fruits. It is particularly easy to reproduce in a high humidity environment. The disease can occur throughout the year and has a very wide host range. Citrus, pears, peaches, mangoes, bananas, strawberries, grapes, watermelons and other fruits can be infected.

Fruits can not only get "anthrax", but also "AIDS". The former can be killed by fungicides, but the latter is helpless even with fungicides. The tropical 4th type of yellow leaf disease, known as "banana AIDS", can cause banana leaves to wilt and turn yellow, the heart of the tree to necrotize, and lead to the death of the plant.

The disease is caused by a fungus called Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense, which can be spread through water and soil, survive in the soil for more than 30 years, and is resistant to fungicides. Because this fungus mainly harms bananas, spreads very quickly and is difficult to prevent and control, just like AIDS, it is called "banana AIDS."

Bananas are triploids formed by self-pollination or hybridization between Musa balbisiana and Musa acuminata. They cannot produce seeds, which is good news for consumers, but bad for the species: seedless bananas can only reproduce by vegetative propagation, which makes them single-species, lacking genetic diversity, and difficult to resist rapidly evolving pathogens. Preventing species from becoming "monopolized" has become an issue that crop breeding must consider.

Actively cultivating more banana varieties (especially those resistant to "banana AIDS") and increasing the genetic diversity of species are the fundamental ways to resist "banana AIDS". In addition, microbial control methods can also be used to add antagonistic bacteria to pathogenic fungi in fertilizers to prevent and control diseases.

Modern agriculture has allowed ordinary people to taste the extremely expensive fruits of ancient times. At present, it is still difficult for most people to achieve "cherry freedom" and "strawberry freedom", but with the development of breeding and cultivation technologies, once the technology and cost are accessible, achieving "fruit freedom" will not be far away.

The Code of Life series (three volumes)

Author: Yin Ye

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Editor: YANG