Year round cherimoya availability from Peru - how do they do it?

[elriba]

Hi,
Here were I live, in Panama, Central America, there isn't any significant production of cherimoyas.  In fact, the only commercial source - I know of - local to Panama told me that the season is finished.  There are however imported cherimoyas from Peru.  I was curious about their seasonality, so, I asked the people who import them from Peru.  And was VERY SURPRISED to hear that they are available year round.  They plan on bringing in a shipment every 15 days, year round!

How is this even possible?  How do they get the cherimoyas to flower year round?  Is this something that I could do with the few annonas I have?  This is definitely something I would love to learn how to do it....

[spaugh]

if the weather stays warm enough the tree can keep flowering anytime of year.  just strip some leaves off of it and they make flowers.

[elriba]

Hi spaugh
Wow.... I had no idea this could be done.
Thanks for your comments!

[spaugh]

my guess is theres still a part of the yer in Peru where theres not fruit.  they probably have some part of winter where the trees don't flower.  Just a guess.

[Galatians522]

From a geographical perspective, Peru is a mountainous equatorial country. The latitude should make it tropical, but the altitude keeps things cool. "Winter" is adjusted in timing by how high up the mountain you go. Just because they get cherimoya 12 months a year from Peru does not mean that they come from the same farm all 12 months of the year. However, there are places in Peru where the temperature never drops below the upper 50s or goes above the low 80s regardless of wether it is summer or winter. I am not a cherimoya expert, but maybe weather like that would enable year round cherimoya production from a single farm (with cultural practices like Brad mentioned).

[driftwood]

Cherimoya is from peru originally

[ben mango]

They could also be spraying something that forces the plants to flower, it’s done with pineapple, mango, etc in commercial operations