Fruit Farming

fruit farming, growing of fruit crops, including nuts, primarily for use as human food.

The subject of fruit and nut production deals with intensive culture of perennial plants, the fruits of which have economic significance (a nut is a fruit, botanically). It is one part of the broad subject of horticulture, which also encompasses vegetable growing and production of ornamentals and flowers. This article places further arbitrary limitations in that it does not encompass a number of very important perennial fruit crops covered elsewhere, including vanilla, coffee, and the oil-producing tung tree and oil palm (see coffee, fat and oil processing, wine, and articles on individual plants [e.g., vanilla; tung tree; and oil palm]).

Botanists define a fruit in broad terms as the fleshy or dry ripened ovary surrounding the seed of a plant. A pomologist, or specialist in the science and practice of fruit growing, defines it somewhat more narrowly as the fleshy edible part of a perennial plant associated with development of the flower. A nut is any seed or fruit consisting of a kernel, usually oily, surrounded by a hard or brittle shell. Most edible nuts—e.g., almond, walnut, cashew, pecan, pistachio, etc.—are well known as dessert nuts. Not all nuts are edible. Some, used as sources of oil or fat, may be regarded as oil seeds; others are used for ornament. The botanical definition of a nut, based on features of form and structure (morphology), is more restrictive: a hard, dry, one-celled, one-seeded fruit that does not split open at maturity. Among the nuts that fit both the botanical and popular conception are the acorn, chestnut, and filbert; other so-called nuts may be botanically a seed (Brazil nut), a legume (peanut [groundnut]), or a drupe (almond and coconut). In this article the term nut is used in its broadest sense unless otherwise indicated.

This article treats the principles and practices of fruit cultivation. For a discussion of the processing of fruits, see the article food preservation; for information on their nutritive value, see nutrition, human.

Improvements in technology and consolidation of the fruit and nut industries in the most favoured climates of the world have been responsible for a steady increase in yield. Thus, the total acreage or number of plants devoted to various fruit and nut crops has dropped, remained about the same, or not risen in proportion to the increase in the respective crop production.

Although fruit- and nut-growing enterprises cover great ranges of climates and plant materials, their technologies have many common problems and practices. The most significant of these are discussed below.