New Zealand Journal of Crop and Horticultural Science abstracts
Invited review
1904-the year that kiwifruit (Actinidia deliciosa) came to New
Zealand
A. R. Ferguson
The Horticulture and Food Research
Institute of New Zealand Ltd
Private Bag 92 169
Auckland, New Zealand
email: rferguson@hortresearch.co.nz
Abstract Seeds of the green-fleshed kiwifruit, Actinidia
deliciosa, were introduced into New Zealand in 1904. Descendants of the
first plants produced from these seeds were used for the development of the
kiwifruit industry first in New Zealand and then in other countries. In 1899,
the English nursery firm of James Veitch & Sons, Ltd sent E. H. Wilson
to China to collect plants suitable for the temperate gardens of Europe and
North America. Wilson was based at Ichang, a small port on the Yangzi River
just downstream from the Three Gorges. In 1900, Wilson sent seeds of A.
deliciosa to Britain and plants were being offered there for sale in 1904.
Wilson is therefore directly responsible for the first significant introduction
of the green kiwifruit to Europe. At about the same time, kiwifruit seeds
and plants were obtained from Wilson and sent to the United States. However,
these introductions to Britain and the United States remained as ornamental
plants and did not develop into commercial production, partly because of
the need for both male and female plants. Wilson was probably indirectly
responsible for kiwifruit seeds coming to New Zealand. In 1900 he made the
kiwifruit known to the European residents of Ichang. One such resident was
a missionary from New Zealand, Katie Fraser. Her sister, Isabel Fraser, visited
Ichang in 1903 and when she returned to New Zealand in 1904, she brought
kiwifruit seeds with her. The cultivar ‘Hayward’, a direct descendant of
those first seeds, is now the mainstay of kiwifruit industries throughout
the world. The kiwifruit is the most successful of all the Chinese plants
that Wilson introduced into cultivation.
Keywords Actinidia chinensis; Actinidia deliciosa;
China; domestication; Fraser, Isabel; Fraser, Katie; Henry, Augustine; history;
kiwifruit; mihoutao; plant exploration; Veitch, James & Sons, Ltd; Wilson,
E. H.; yangtao
H03112; Online publication date 17 March 2004; Received 15 December 2003;
accepted 5 February 2004
New Zealand Journal of Crop and Horticultural Science, 2004, Vol. 32:
3-27
0014-0671/04/3201-0003 © The Royal Society of New Zealand 2004
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