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POSSIBILITIES OF NON-CITRUS TROPICAL FRUIT IN THE MEDITERRANEAN
Further subdivision into distinctly tropical or subtropical can become difficult to precise.
Most tropicals remained confined within their areas of origin throughout centuries (in most cases, Southeastern Asia and Central and South America). Spread particularly for banana and mango began with the discovery of the New World and improved sea routes around the globe.
Throughout the 16th and 17th centuries, the European ruling classes nurtured exotic species such as the pineapple in expensive glasshouses and in the 1800’s increased public interest lead to their display in Botanical Gardens.
By this time, those areas blessed with a subtropical climate had many fruit-bearing tropicals well established in kitchen- and ornamental gardens for home consumption.
As maritime transport improved at the beginning of the 20th century, several tropical fruits became more or less routinely available to distant consumers.
Commerce led, inevitably, to the awakening of scientific interest in the feasibility of cultivating species such as avocado, banana, and mango under ecological conditions different from those of their areas of origin, particularly under the somewhat cooler regimes of California, Israel, South Africa, Canary Islands, or Queensland and New South Wales (Australia). These countries have to a great extent succeeded in their programmes aimed at extending tropical crop limits, in most cases with considerable economic gain, and this has motivated several Mediterranean countries to experiment along similar lines, as an alternative to problems of surplus of traditionally temperate crops in their markets.
I will not refer here to crops such as the feijoa (Acca sellowiana Berg.) or the kiwi (Actinidia deliciosa Liang et Ferguson), which are exotics sometimes classified as subtropical.
Inasmuch as their excellent results in subtropical plantations are concerned, this appears to be correct, yet both are perfectly suited to low temperatures – the feijoa withstanding -9°C (7) and the kiwi up to -15°C (72). This is similarly applicable to the papaya relative,