2017 ASHS Annual Conference

Tens of thousands of plant species produce various edible, medicinal and/or industrial components, but fewer than 100 plant species yield almost all of the food products available on a commercial scale worldwide. Pitanga is not a newly discovered fruit, although its commercial potential has not been widely developed anywhere except in its native Brazil. Introduced to Hawai‘i in the nineteenth century, fruits have long been popular in farmers’ markets and are in demand by chefs and processors. Additional interest in the crop has expanded rather recently because of the availability of purple-fruited, better-tasting, sweeter fruits that are high in antioxidants. Purple-fruited cultivars have been introduced to growers in Brazil, the USA and a few other countries. In Florida, the tasty and prolific ‘Zill Dark’ purple-fruited cultivar has been available for some time and is the parent plant of the large seedling field of pitanga planted at the Kona Experiment Station. The planting at Kona has 137 seedlings from a ‘Zill Dark’ self-crossing and 20 grafted plants of ‘Zill Dark’. Data collected from the ‘Zill Dark’ plants are used as controls and data collected from seedlings are compared against that of the ‘Zill Dark’ plants. As the planting has matured, all plants have been evaluated for various pest and disease problems and fertilizer and water requirements. Fruits from individual plants have been evaluated for antioxidant content, flavor, fruit weight, seed size and postharvest quality. From 2013 to 2015, all individual plants were evaluated weekly for presence of flowers and/or fruits in various stages of development. In spring 2017, the seedling field was again being examined for ripe fruits when it was discovered that one plant held many smaller ripe fruits that were all seedless. Plants on either side of this plant had the usual ripe purple fruits with seeds, so pollination did not appear to be a problem. Seedless fruits are not reported in the literature and there had been no earlier attempts to look for them in this field. Further close inspection of ripe fruits in the field turned up two more purple-fruited pitanga seedling plants producing nothing but seedless fruits. Although smaller in size than fruits with seeds, the value of a seedless pitanga fruit is considerable.