- 描述
描述
Kiwi or kiwifruit is oval in shape and is about the size of a large hen’s egg. It has a thin, hair-like, fibrous, sour but surprisingly edible light brown skin. China produces 50% of the world totals of kiwifruit.
The kiwi is native to north-central and eastern China. The first recorded description of the kiwifruit dates to 12th century China during the Song dynasty. At that point the plant was rarely cultivated or bred. It was generally collected from the wild and consumed for medicinal purposes.
Cultivation of kiwifruit spread from China in the early 20th century to New Zealand, where the first commercial plantings occurred. The fruit became popular with British and American servicemen stationed in New Zealand during World War II. Export started later to Great Britain and then to California, USA in the 1960s.
In New Zealand during the 1940s and 1950s, the fruit became an agricultural commodity through the development of commercially viable cultivars, agricultural practices, shipping, storage, and marketing. Much of the breeding to refine the green kiwifruit and develop the gold Zespri was undertaken during the decades of 1970-1999. In 1990, the New Zealand Kiwifruit Marketing Board opened an office for Europe. Antwerp, Belgium, became the headquarters for European marketing of Zespri gold kiwifruit in 2010.
