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AFUW-ACT
Inc. October 2009 Meeting Report
Topic: A History of Citrus
Date: Thursday 1st October
Speaker - Bronwen Sissons
In our October meeting Bronwen Sissons spoke to us on CITRUS - A HISTORY.
Citrus fruit originated in China and has been known there for millenia.
It was first traded along the Silk Route. Citron grew in the wild in
North India. Persia was the first place to cultivate it and it then
went to Palestine in 200BC. When the Jewish diaspora was taking place
a coin from 136BC shows the fruit and it followed the Jews around the
Mediterranean to Italy and Greece. The fruit was both useful and beautiful
and travels well.
In the 8th and 9th centuries AD the citrus fruit came to North Africa
and Spain and Portugal with the spread of Islam. Europe was largely
illiterate at this time but in spite of intermittent warfare, Islam
was a huge civilizing influence in science, art, medicine, philosophy
and astronomy. The Berbers of North Africa and Syria used irrigation
for their new crops of citrus, vines, wheat and olives. The Romans had
plenty of vines
but the barbarians destroyed them.
In the 11th and 12th centuries Spain and Portugal had flourishing citrus
groves, which were quite spectacular in the area of the Great Mosque
in ordoba. Christian Europe was at first suspicious. After 1567 Cistercian
Monks were planting citrus in North Portugal. In the Middle Ages lemons
and oranges grown in Southern Europe became associated with Christmas.
The New World Inquisition in Portugal drove many Jews to Brazil; in
18th century much of the population of Brazil were professionals so
used slave labour to plant their orchards. In 1493 Columbus brought
lime seeds to Italy, which came originally from North India and Spain.
Crusaders brought limes to Italy in 12th - 13th centuries. Spain and
Portuguese navigators took it to the Americas and it escaped to the
Caribbean and Florida. The Caribbean lime plantations started supplying
the British market in the mid 19th century.
Problems for growers are drought and frost. Wind beaks were used to
protect the trees - California used eucalypts. There were severe frosts
where the trees were destroyed in 1894-5, it took 16 years for them
to recover. In the little Ice Age in Europe from 1650-1850 harvests
were poor.
SMUDGE POTS were used to protect the fruit from frost. These were large
canisters filled with oil and other flammables like old tyres, which
meant cold nights were blanketed in thick black smoke, which caused
air pollution so California banned the smudge pots in 1950.
Citrus in California was very successful. Agricultural Research proved
that the needs were fertilizer, irrigation, spraying, and protection
from frost. There were medicinal properties, which persuaded Governments
to support the industry. Both Portuguese and Arabs knew the value of
citrus for scurvy victims and the Dutch navy of the 16th and 17th centuries
used this knowledge. In 1937 the winner of the Nobel Prize identified
the anti-scurvy molecule as Vitamin C. In Australia George Chaffey and
his brother William in 1886 began construction of irrigation works,
which enabled citrus to be grown first in Renmark then in Mildura, Victoria.
A railway was needed to send the fruit to markets but there was nothing
to replace the slow paddle steamers and the coaches for 17 years. The
first oranges were sent to London in 1892.
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