History of Pineapple

According to the diary of Christopher Columbus, in 1493 he found pineapples were grown in Guadelupe, on the coast of Panama, and in the delta of the Amazonas River.

The word nana (perfumed), part of the native name retained in French and German ananas, is a Brazilian Guarani vocable.

Taxonomical work on genus Ananas was probably initiated during the 16th century when Charles Plumier, a Jesuit priest collected pineapple plants on the island of Hispaniola.

Pineapple were brought to Europe to give the Old World, a taste of their succulence, but the Emperor Charles V, the first monarch to try one, thought it very nasty.

The first successfully greenhouse cultivation was by Le Cour at the end of the 17th century near Leiden. 

Spanish and Portuguese explorers then distributed the fruit to India, Philippines, Malaysia and Africa in the 16th and 17th centuries.

By 1594 it reached China and by 1655, South Africa.

The first commercial plantation was established on Hawaii in 1885, and Hawaii remained the major producer until the 1960s.

Pineapple was canned for the first time in 1888 in Malaysia and canned pineapple was exported for the forts time from Singapore to Europe around 1900.
History of Pineapple

Fruit of pineapple

The pineapple, Ananas comosus (L.) Merr., probably originated in tropical South America. Then, Columbus returned to Spain with specimen of the fruit and reported that the Carib Indians cultivated pineapple in the West Indies.

Pineapple is the third most important tropical fruit in the world production after banana and citrus.

This worldwide production has developed since the early 1500s when pineapple was first taken to Europe and then distributed throughout the world’s tropics.

The flesh is juicy sweet-tart, and acidic. At its best, it’s among the best tasting fruits there is especially when roasted, broiled or grilled.

Cutting a pineapple well makes a great difference in yielding the most fruit without losing a lot of the flesh with skin. The core of a pineapple is quite fibrous.

A fresh whole fruit or the cored and peeled flesh has the highest market value, but a limited shelf life, up to three weeks under proper conditions.

Large slices in syrup or juice are next in value. Broken slices and smaller fruit can be cut into spears and chunks.

Pineapple is eaten fresh and canned, and the juice is sold singly and in combination with other fruit juices.
Fruit of pineapple

Pineapple

Pineapple
Pineapples are normally seedless, and they must be propagated vegetatively. The clones are somewhat unstable, and tend to produce mutants with some frequency. As a consequence, many clones are known.

However, one clone, consisting of a number of closely similar mutants, dominates pineapple cultivation, worldwide.

This is “Cayenne” which was first take to Europe (for greenhouse cultivation) in 1820, but is believed to have originated in Venezuela many centuries earlier.

Modern cultivators complain that this clone is susceptible to several parasites, particularly the mealy bug wilt, which results from the destruction of the roots by the insect Dysmicoccus brevipes.

It is now thought that much of this susceptibility may result from an environment erosion of horizontal resistance, or from a loss of biological controls.

“Cayenne” dominates world production because of its excellent yield and quality, and its slightly susceptible to parasites does not prevent this domination.

Most other cultivars have considerable higher levels of resistance to the few known parasites do pineapple.