New Zealand Journal of Crop and Horticultural Science abstracts

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Celebrating 100 years of kiwifruit (Actinidia deliciosa) in New Zealand, 1904-2004

New Zealand Journal of Crop and Horticultural Science

This year, 2004, is being taken as the centenary of kiwifruit (Actinidia deliciosa) coming to New Zealand. As described in the invited review by A. R. Ferguson, Isabel Fraser, then headmistress of Wanganui Girls’ College, introduced kiwifruit seeds into the country in 1904. Miss Fraser had been visiting her sister, Katie, a missionary at the Church of Scotland Mission Station at Ichang, Hubei, China and when she returned, she brought kiwifruit seeds with her. It is just possible that kiwifruit had come to New Zealand earlier but if so, all details have been lost. It is also possible that some other introductions were made about the same time. The evidence is suggestive, not conclusive. However, we do know that it was the seeds that Miss Fraser brought in that were so important and so successful, the start of the kiwifruit industry both in New Zealand and elsewhere in the world. We can’t be certain where Miss Fraser obtained the seeds but it was almost certainly from the British plant explorer and collector, Ernest Wilson, who wrote, at the time, that he had introduced the kiwifruit to the European residents of Ichang. Wilson is probably the most successful of all plant explorers in China and the kiwifruit is undoubtedly the most successful of all the plants that he introduced. That first introduction of seeds has had dramatic consequences. Kiwifruit are now very important to the New Zealand economy and they are currently the most valuable of all our horticultural exports. Orchardists and nurserymen were responsible for the initial development of the kiwifruit industry but science too has contributed. The first scientific paper from New Zealand on kiwifruit was an account by O. H. Keys in 1942 of the remarkably high vitamin C content of the fruit. The next was a paper in 1950 by C. A. S. Padfield & M. J. Bridgeman on the effects on temperature on kiwifruit storage. Both these papers were published in predecessors of this journal. Today this journal still encourages the publication of papers on kiwifruit because we recognise them as contributing so much to our research effort in horticultural science. We congratulate the kiwifruit industry on what it has achieved over the past century. We join them in celebrating what has been a remarkable success story.

New Zealand Journal of Crop and Horticultural Science, 2004, Vol. 32: 1
0014-0671/04/3201-0001 © The Royal Society of New Zealand 2004

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