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HISTORY-Breed Development
Taiwan is called the Kingdom of Fruits. One of the reasons is that although the island is small, it straddles tropical and temperate climates. There are mountains, hills, and plains on the island. There are many types of fruits that can be cultivated. Therefore, there are many types of fruits on the island. It is filled with all kinds of delicious and cheap fruits. Most of Taiwan's fruits were introduced and improved before they became popular among the people. Many fruits are not native to Taiwan, including the most popular pineapple.
This visit to Golden Diamond Pineapple
Types of pineapples
The hometown of pineapple is in the Americas. Legend has it that the Italian explorer Columbus arrived in the Americas in the 15th century and brought pineapples back to Europe from Guadeloupe in the Caribbean in 1493 AD. With the advent of the Age of Discovery, pineapples also spread to the world, including China. It is speculated that the Portuguese first brought pineapples to Macau in the 16th century and then entered the country. According to historical records, the Portuguese arrived in Macau in the 32nd year of the Jiajing reign of the Ming Dynasty and early 1553 AD and requested trade. The following year they were allowed to trade along the coast of Guangdong.
There are no native pineapples in Taiwan. The existing pineapples are all exotic species, including the so-called "native pineapples". Pineapples are very popular. Taiwan's annual pineapple output is approximately 420,000 metric tons in 2021. The main production area is Pingtung, the southernmost location, accounting for nearly 30% of the total output. The neighboring Kaohsiung and Tainan each account for 15%. There are also a small amount of plantings in northern Taiwan, including Beitou, Taipei City, and Tamsui and Sanzhi, New Taipei City. Beitou was rich in pineapples during the Qing Dynasty, and a tribe called "Pineapple House" was formed, but now only a few are cultivated.
Coming to plant pineapples
There are three generations and three categories of pineapple varieties in Taiwan, including "Zai Lai", "Kai Ying" and three improved varieties. Most people eat the improved varieties of the third generation. Some people think that the native pineapples eaten by a few people are This is a Taiwanese native variety, actually a second-generation Kaiying variety. As for the more earthy pineapple, it is a first-generation imported species. It is commonly known as the island pineapple. It is said that the ancestors introduced it from Fujian, and now only a small amount is planted. , the general public may not have even heard of it, let alone eating it. Although it looks very similar to ordinary pineapples, the varieties are different.
The pineapples that came to Taiwan during the Qing Dynasty were cultivated here. They are commonly known as Taiwan pineapples. They have a fragrant taste and deep fruit base. They can be said to be the first generation of pineapples in Taiwan.
After more than 200 years of development in Taiwan, the island's pineapples were gradually replaced during the Japanese colonial period. The reason at that time was that the stems were too deep to dig out and were not suitable for canning, so the Japanese found substitute Nanyang varieties. It was the Kaiying species that became Taiwan’s second-generation pineapple.
Kaiying Planting Pineapples
The founder of Taiwanese canned pineapples is Taro Okamura, a native of Osaka. He came to Taiwan in 1895, the 28th year of Meiji, because he saw the business opportunities for Japan to import a large number of canned pineapples. From the 33rd year of Meiji, 1900 He began experimenting with canned pineapples in 2001, and later established the "Okamura Pineapple Canning Factory" in Fengshan, which is also a canning factory. At the same time, Yoshinosuke Sakurai was also making canned pineapples in Changhua. He originally wanted to use local oysters to make cans, but after failure, he switched to using pineapples that were abundant in central China.
Due to the deep peduncle of the island's pineapples, manual digging is required for canning, which is too time-consuming. Therefore, a new variety, Smooth Cayenne, was found in Singapore and was initially called the Nanyang variety. Smooth means that the outer skin is relatively smooth and less thorny, and Cayenne is a place name, now translated as Gaia, the capital of the South American country Guyana. Kaiying pineapple is a pineapple variety that was successfully bred in Hawaii and became very popular in South America. It was popularized in the 19th century.
In the 1930s, the pineapple harvest on the island failed due to cold damage. Nanyang pineapples took advantage of the situation and were widely promoted in places such as Changhua in central China. Bagua Mountain became the main planting area. In the 1930s during the Showa era, the Governor-General took all pineapple canning factories into public ownership. In the 1940s, the Nanyang variety was named Kaiying pineapple based on the English pronunciation.
Because the pineapples grown in Kaiying were not sweet enough, they gradually began to be improved into sweeter pineapples. The first improved variety, Tainong No. 1, was bred in Showa 9 and 1934. By 2020, it had been bred Arrive at Tainong No. 23. The common golden pineapples and milk pineapples on the market now are improved varieties.
As soon as the improved pineapples came on the market, Kaiying pineapples were gradually called native pineapples, causing many people to mistakenly think that they were native pineapples that existed in Taiwan. As for the more native pineapples grown on the island, they are on the verge of extinction, with only a few left. A small number of them have been planted. In Wangli Town, Changhua, where pineapples are grown and pineapple cakes are sold, there are still ten plants, which is very rare.
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