Actinidia Deliciosa - History

History

In 1847, specimens of the plant were collected by the agent for the Royal Horticultural Society, London.

Cultivation spread from China in the early 20th century when seeds were introduced to New Zealand by Isabel Fraser, the principal of Wanganui Girls' College, who had been visiting mission schools in China. The seeds were planted in 1906 by a Wanganui nurseryman, Alexander Allison, with the vines first fruiting in 1910.

People who tasted the fruit thought it had a gooseberry flavour, so began to call it the Chinese gooseberry, but being from the Actinidia genus, it is not related to the Grossulariaceae (gooseberry) family.

The familiar cultivar Actinidia deliciosa 'Hayward' was developed by Hayward Wright in Avondale, New Zealand around 1924. This is the most widely grown cultivar in the world. Chinese gooseberry was initially grown in domestic gardens, but commercial planting began in the 1940s.

In 1959, Turners and Growers named it kiwifruit, after New Zealand's national bird, the kiwi—brown and furry.

As of 2006, Italy was the leading producer of kiwifruit in the world, followed by New Zealand, Chile, France, Greece, Japan and the United States. Kiwifruit is still produced in its birthplace China, but China has never made it to the top 10 list of kiwifruit producing countries. In China, it is grown mainly in the mountainous area upstream of the Yangtze River. It is also grown in other areas of China, including Sichuan.

In 2010 and 2011, kiwifruit vines worldwide, in Italy, France and New Zealand, suffered devastating attacks by a bacterial disease caused by Pseudomonas syringae pv. actinidiae, with some of the New Zealand attacks by the virulent strain PSA-V. The disease had first been noticed in Japan in the 1980s, and subsequently in northern Italy (1992) and South Korea.