There are several kinds of insect pests that can be great trouble to the peach. The Oriental fruit moth can make the peaches filled with worms and young growing tips may die. The plum curculio lays its eggs on the fruit, and makes them drop off or become filled with worms. Insects like the tarnished plant bug and the stink bug eat up the fruit that is still developing. Borers attack the base of the trunk and the branches.
Fig
Fig (genus "Ficus") is a soft, sweet fruit. Its skin is very thin and has many small seeds inside of it. There are more than 850 kinds of "Ficus", the fig tree.
The fruits can be eaten when ripe and when dried. Figs grow in warm climates. Sometimes, figs are made into jam. Figs are also in a popular snack.
Figs are pollinated by fig wasps.
Many figs are grown for their fruit, though only the common fig is grown to any amount for eating.
The fig is a false fruit or multiple fruit, in which the flowers and seeds grow together to form a single mass. Depending on the type, each fruit can contain up to several hundred to several thousand seeds.
A fig "fruit" is derived from a special type of an arrangement of multiple flowers. In this case, it is a turned inwards, nearly closed, with many small flowers arranged on the inside.
Then the actual flowers of the fig are not seen unless the fig is cut open. It is a fruit without a seen flower.
The fig fruits, important as both food and traditional medicine, contain laxative substances, pigments, sugars, vitamins A and C, acids and enzymes. However, figs are skin allergies, and the sap is a big eye irritant.
Some 'virgin fruit' farms of common figs do not require pollination at all, and will produce a crop of seedless edible figs without fig wasps. This section explains how this is done.
The syconium often has a bulbous shape with a small opening (the ostiole) at the outward end used by pollinators. The flowers are pollinated by very small wasps which crawl through the opening in search of a suitable place to lay eggs.
Without this, fig trees cannot reproduce by seed. In turn, the flowers provide a safe haven and nourishment for the next generation of wasps. This has led to a co-evolutionary relationship.
Fig plants can be monoecious (hermaphrodite) or gynodioecious (hermaphrodite and female). Nearly half of fig species are gynodioecious, and have plants with inflorescences (syconium) with long styled pistillate flowers, or have plants with staminate flowers mixed with short styled pistillate flowers. The long flower styles tend to prevent wasps from laying their eggs within the ovules, while the short styled flowers are accessible for egg laying.
The common fig ("Ficus carica") is a gynodioecious plant, which means its fruits are either hermaphrodite and "inedible figs" or caprifigs. In traditional culture in the Mediterranean region they were considered food for goats ("Capra aegagrus"): 'caprifig' means 'goat fig'. In the female fig trees, the male flower parts fail to develop; they produce the "edible figs".
Fig wasps grow in caprifigs but not in the female syconiums. The female flower is too long for the wasp to successfully lay her eggs in them. Nonetheless, the wasp pollinates the flower with pollen from the caprifig it grew up in. When the wasp dies, it is broken down by enzymes inside the fig. This means you do not eat the wasp because it has been dissolved. The wasp does not transmit any diseases harmful to humans.
The edible fig is one of the first plants that were cultivated by humans.
There is typically "only one species of wasp that is able to pollinate the flowers of each type of fig". For example, in Hawaii, some 60 types of figs have been introduced, but only four of the wasps that pollinate them have been introduced, so only four species of figs produce possible seeds there. This is an example of a helping relationship, in which each fig plant and fig wasp benefit each other.
The close relationship between fig types and their pollinators, and the one-to-one plant-pollinator ratio are a clear example of coevolution. Recent analyses have shown a close correspondence in the evolution and evolutionary process of these two, figs and wasps.
Grapefruit
Grapefruit is a citrus fruit grown in sub-tropical places. It is bigger than an orange and is often more sour, but many types of grapefruit have other flavors.
The tree which the grapefruit grows on is normally 5-6 meters tall but can reach up to 15 meters tall. It has dark green leaves that measure up to 150mm and has white flowers that grow 5cm in length. The fruit itself can grow 10-15cm in diameter. In 2007, there were about 5,061,023 tons of grapefruits made worldwide, most of the tons coming from the U.S. There are many different kinds of grapefruits with different color pulp. The most popular colors are red, white and pink. There are also a wide range of flavors grapefruits have, from highly acidic and bitter to sweet.
Grape
Grapes are the fruit of a woody grape vine. Grapes can be eaten raw, or used for making wine, juice, and jelly/jam. Grapes come in different colours; red, purple, white, and green are some examples. Today, grapes can be seedless, by using machines to pit the fruit. Wild grapevines are often considered a nuisance weed, as they cover other plants with their usually rather aggressive growth.
Raisins are the dried fruit of the grapevine, and the name actually comes from the French word for "grape."
Since the early 21st century in the United States and other countries, and the global functional food industry, there has been a fast-growing recognition of red grapes for their popularity, nutrient content and antioxidant qualities. This has given them commercial status as a "superfruit".
The leaves of the grapevine itself are considered edible (eatable). They are used to make dolmades.
Grapevines are used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species.
According to the "Food and Agriculture Organization" (FAO), almost 76,000 square kilometres of the world is used to grow grapes. About 71% of grapes are used for wine. 27% are used as fresh fruit, and 2% are used as dried fruit. A part of grape production goes to making grape juice to be used as a sweetener for fruits canned "with no added sugar" and "100% natural". The area dedicated to vineyards is increasing by about 2% per year.
The following list of top wine-producers shows the areas used to grow grapes for wine making, although of course country size is a limiting factor, as well as the economic demand for their product.
Comparing diets among western countries, researchers have found that although the French usually eat more animal fat than other countries, the number of cases of heart disease remains low in France. Many scientists think this is because the French drink more red wine than other countries. Something in the grape helps lower the amount of cholesterol in the body. This helps prevent clogging of the arteries. Doctors do not recommend drinking a lot of red wine, but three or four glasses a week is good and encouraged.
Grapes of all colors offer benefits. Red wine offers health benefits that are not found in white wine. This is because many of the good nutrients are found in the skins of the grapes, and only red wine is fermented with the skins.
White grapes are derived from the green grape by evolution. Changes in two genes turn off creation of anthocyanin. Anthocyanin is what makes red grapes the color green.
A "raisin" is any dried grape. A "currant" is a dried Zante grape. The name is a corruption of the French "raisin de Corinthe" (Corinth grape). A "sultana" was originally a raisin made from a specific type of grape of Turkish origin. The word is now used for raisins made from common North American grapes and chemically treated to resemble the traditional sultana.