Frutas tropicales poco conocidas: usos y perspectivas

• Published in: Acta horticulturae no. 906; pp. 109 - 113
• Main Author: Hernandez-Gomez, M.S
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: Spanish
• Published: International Society for Horticultural Science 2011
• Subjects: desserts; fruits; growers; markets; Myrciaria dubia; new species; new status; Passiflora edulis f. edulis; Solanaceae; tropical and subtropical fruits; tropics; vegetables; Colombia
• ISSN: 0567-7572

Tropics offer a great variety of fruit and vegetable species. Although, all of them exhibit nutritional, organoleptic or functional attributes required to be included in market chains, only few are usually consumed. Others continue underused or even unknown. Some issues could be responsible for this situation: accessibility to the resources, wild abundance, distribution of the specie, lack of information of benefits, traditional consumption uses, low production, make part of the bottleneck. Nowadays the list of tropical underused species increases and some preliminary research results demonstrate their importance for many purposes. There is not a unique strategy to solve this uneven situation for tropical less used fruit but multiple actions could be developed for these new species to get a new status among the fresh or processed products. In Colombia, many underused fruits from the Myrtaceae, Passifloraceae, Palmaceae or Solanaceae family among others are identified as promising fruits for local or international market. Arazá, camu camu, cocona, purple passion fruit and asaí are new dessert or processed fruits names for consumers. Though, many years have been necessary to include some of them in local markets, research results in national institutions and experiences of local growers can be taken into account to enhance unexploited fruit uses in similar conditions, in other countries. The international market could be another challenge because of standards result of its exigencies and supportive information requirements. A strong network based on research and growers’ experience exchange could improve successful results in getting on the international markets.