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Messages - rfielding

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Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: extreme breadfruit
« on: March 01, 2021, 02:07:23 PM »
I and others in Bermuda have some tissue culture trees.  Our 32 degree north position is cheating due to the Gulf Stream keeping us from getting too cold. 50 years recorded low is 44F. Jan 30th got down to 49F.

Well, I stand corrected. I don't consider the Gulf Stream to be "cheating" at all--you take what you can get! I would be interested to see whether any breadfruit can grow at a higher latitude, north or south, than 32° in Bermuda.

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Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: extreme breadfruit
« on: March 01, 2021, 02:05:56 PM »
Mine in Bokeelia keeps growing but has around 50% defoliation every year. Somewhere between 50-40F degrees it begins to lose leaves. Hawaii should be a good proxy since with altitude it has stark climate changes from ultratropical to freezing. They probably know the limits and should have plenty of examples.

I think yours in Bokeelia might have been the one I heard about, via Palmtalk, that I mentioned in the OP. Sounds like a contender for "northernmost"!

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Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Introduce Yourself
« on: February 26, 2021, 02:52:51 PM »
Hi, I'm a geographer currently based at Coastal Carolina University in Conway, South Carolina. I'm interested in the broad topic of food security and the region I have the most experience in is the Caribbean (mainly Barbados and St. Vincent). My reason for joining the forum is to learn more about breadfruit, aka 'ulu, aka pana, etc. I've started a new topic and am currently searching through the archives to read some of what's been said here about breadfruit in the past. I have a lot to learn! You can read more about my work here: russellfielding.com.

Russell Fielding

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Tropical Fruit Discussion / extreme breadfruit
« on: February 26, 2021, 02:49:03 PM »
Hi everyone,

I'm a geographer based in South Carolina with a research interest in Caribbean food security. Most of my work to date has been on fishing and whaling but I've recently been reading a lot on breadfruit. It's a remarkable crop, as many here know, and is being discussed by NGOs and development agencies in terms of its potential to alleviate hunger throughout many world regions. One problem, though, is its extreme intolerance of cold. I've read the Breadfruit Institute's guide on its suitability range (linked below), and have seen a recently-published paper on how that range might expand under climate change (Mausio et al. 2020). I've begun to wonder about the extreme limits of breadfruit's growth, specifically, what is the furthest from the tropics that breadfruit has successfully been grown?

I suppose I should restrict the question to breadfruit trees rooted in the ground, outdoors, that have successfully fruited. In my reading I've mostly focused on trees growing in Florida, and I've heard of specimens as far north as Bokeelia and Loxahatchee (both 26.7°N). Does anyone here know of an example further north than this? And, since this is a global forum, I'm also interested to learn about breadfruit trees growing as far south as possible past the Tropic of Capricorn.

Please feel free to respond here, or via email (rfielding@coastal.edu) if you have anything to share about the extremes of breadfruit growth, or just about breadfruit in general.

Thanks very much,
Russell Fielding

Breadfruit Institute's range data and maps:
https://ntbg.org/breadfruit/care/regions/

Mausio paper (I'd be happy to share the PDF upon request):
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0228552

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