In the context of the rich italian biodiversity, I recently came across a species of fruit, cultivated in the Reggio Calabria area, which I think few people know about at the moment and which is the result, or rather we could say the fruit, of the intuition and initiative of an enterprising local agronomist, Dr Domenico Bilardi, who has passed on this enthusiasm for novelty and the courage to introduce new species to his sons. The land is located in Catona, in the province of Reggio Calabria, where the particular microclimate and soil turned out to be optimal for this cultivation. The novelty of cultivation has so mentally and physically occupied the company’s land that the company was founded and named after it: Anoneto Bilardi, after the species Anona cherimoya (cyrimoia), of the Anonacee family, genus Annona, native to the Andean highlands of Peru, which arrived in Calabria in 1797.
The particularity of this species is its ability to adapt and grow particularly luxuriantly in the climatic conditions of Calabria, and in particular the Tyrrhenian coast. Only here, in fact, does it succeed in flowering and producing fruit, while elsewhere its development is limited to growth, with no differentiation of flower buds.
Flowering is very prolonged, scalar, from spring to summer, ripening is, consequently, long, from September-October to December. The fruit is very rich in potassium, as well as phosphorus, iron, vitamins A, B1, B2, C, essential trace elements, antioxidants. The flesh is white, sweet, creamy, soft, delicately sour, with a flavour intermediate between pear, apple and banana.
The fruit is light green in colour, then brown when ripe, has characteristic protuberances and is large in size and weight, ranging from 200 grams to 1.5 kilograms
It can be produced either from seed plants, which come into production after at least 6 years, or from grafted plants, the rootstock generally used being the Campas variety.
Although cherimoya is the species that characterises the company, other fruits of tropical origin are also cultivated, which are gradually spreading to our latitudes such as AVOCADO (varieties Bacon, Fuerte, Hass), MANGO (var. Kensington Pride), passion fruit, bergamot, FINGERLIME
A tip of curiosity: when talking about vital, biological, ideal minimum temperatures, and trying to define which climatic or microclimatic characteristics are suitable for the various species, it is good to point out a few particularities that a grower cannot fail to know and that a prospective new fruit grower is well aware of. An example? The avocado plant cannot survive in conditions below 0°C for more than ten minutes.
