Annona squamosa seed
LATIN NAME: Annona squamosa
COMMON NAME: Sugar Apple
Sugar apple is the soft, sweet fruit of the warm lowlands, and it has been grown around the tropics for a very long time. The small, open-crowned tree carries fragrant, greenish flowers and then heavy, round, knobbly fruits made up of many segments that separate at the peak of ripeness. The creamy, sweet, custard-like flesh is eaten by the spoonful, and the shiny, brown-black seeds are left behind. It is one of the most delicious and the most rewarding of the warm-climate fruit trees for the home grower.
Scientific Research & Plant Biotechnology
The sugar apple has a steady place in the tropical fruit science. The fruit has been worked on for its sweet flesh, its seeds and the traditional uses of the different parts of the tree, and the plant keeps showing up in the work on the warm-climate fruit production. The breeding and the selection of the better-fruiting forms are documented in the tropical agriculture journals, and the plant is a regular subject of the studies of the custard-apple family. The hand-pollination of the flowers, which improves the fruit set, is a well-known practice that comes out of this research.
Ecological & Economic Value & Wide Applications
The sugar apple is a popular market fruit across the warm world, and the soft, sweet flesh is eaten fresh or made into the drinks, the ice creams and the desserts. The tree is an easy, adaptable grower of the warm, dry ground, and it crops reliably with the warm season. The leaves, the bark and the roots have a long traditional use in the warm-country medicine, and the hard, shiny seeds have been used in the local craftwork. It has been written up in the horticultural and the food papers for its fine flavour and its easy cropping, and it is a fine, generous fruit tree for the warm garden.
The sugar apple belongs to the custard-apple family, a group of the warm-climate fruit trees that also gives us the cherimoya and the soursop, and it is one of the most widely grown of them all. It is a fruit of the warm lowlands, from the America to the Asia and the Africa, and the soft, sweet, granular flesh is eaten fresh by the spoonful or made into the drinks and the ice creams. The tree is an easy, adaptable grower of the warm, dry ground, and the hand-pollination of the flowers is a well-known trick that improves the fruit set. It is one of the most rewarding of the warm-climate fruit trees for the home grower.
Sugar apple is easy from the fresh seed. Scoop the shiny, brown seeds out of a ripe fruit, wash the sticky flesh off them and sow them right away at a shallow depth in pots of moist, free-draining soil. Keep the pots in a warm, bright spot, water them gently, and the seedlings will be up within a few weeks. They grow on into sturdy young trees that will fruit in a few years, so a warm, sheltered, sunny spot is all they ask.
A small (2-4"), knobby fruit with soft, creamy white flesh often having a minty or custardy flavor. The sugar apple is extremely popular throughout the tropics, especially in climates where the cherimoya can not be grown. Description: Small, deciduous tree to 15-25ft, spreading to the same size. Trees loose leaves in the winter for about 4-6 weeks. Leaves are 6-8" long. Flowers appear with new leaf growth in early spring. Fruits ripen 3-4 months later throughout summer and fall. The common sugar apple has a green skin but dark red varieties are becoming more commonplace.
