Volume 48 Number 3 Article 5 Pages: 159-162
Year 1994 Month 7
Title: Problems and Opportunities in Passion Fruit Culture and Development
Author: R.J. Knight Jr.
Citation
Abstract:
About 3500 metric tons (MT) of purple and
yellow passion fruit (Passiflora edulis Sims and
P. edulis f. flavicarpa Degener) and hybrids
between these two forms are produced in the
world annually.
Growers of this crop are confronted by fungal disease that attacks the fruit,
leaves, stem and roots.
Also, expensive trellising
must be erected to support the vines, and the
fruit must be harvested at frequent intervals by
picking it up from the ground where it falls
when it ripens.
Purple-fruited cultivars tend to
fruit in spring and early summer, but do not
flower well during hot weather, unlike the yellow
passion fruit which thrives under lowland tropical conditions.
Current breeding efforts are
aimed at crossing inbred purple- and yellowfruited
lines to obtain F-l hybrids with maroon
fruit, that bear well all summer.
One collection
from the wild, EL 424814, was found to have
genes for dwarfness and the ability to hold
mature fruit on the vine a month or more after
color break.
Another accession, M-32025, had
§enes for extra locules (up to 5 versus the usual
), making a dense, firmly-packed fruit.
Combining all these traits can produce dwarf culti
vars with disease-resistant, dense fruit that may
be collected from the vines as needed rather
than picked off the ground after it drops.
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