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Fruit-bearing Trees - Sapota

Beauty is skin deep

A native of central America, sapota, botanically called Achras zapota, in a tree about 20-25 feet tall, with a compact canopy of green foliage, possessing an attraction that is all its own. Apart from the very tasty fruit the tree bears, the latex or the milky fluid that flows out, on an incision made on any part of the tree, is used in making chewing gum.

But what makes it popular with garden lovers is that it is a hardy tree, able to stand a variety of adverse environmental conditions and not susecptible to many of the common pests: application of organic manure like leaf compost is good enough for a luxurious growth of the tree - all of which make the gardener's job easy and delightful.

I remember a time when sapota was not very much in evidence in the Indian market. But through the past 20-30 years, the fruit has been accepted by the Indian palate and today it is seen in great abundance, almost round the year and in all parts of the country.

On an average, a sapota tree yields about 50-100 kg of fruit per year. It bears fruit round the year, though peaking twice a year - December to February and June to August. This pattern of fruiting provides fruit for dessert, if you have a sapota tree in your backyard.

Unfortunately, the sapota exhibits many undesirable traits. The fruit stalk is rather weak. So much so, a squirrel in a hurry or a crow alighting on the branch causing a flutter make the fruits fall to the ground. Its keeping quality is very poor and, therefore, a long period between harvesting and marketing is virtually ruled out. The skin is very thin, subject to tearing stresses easily.

The seeds are large and many, rendering the consumable flesh smaller per unit volume of the fruit. No wonder, orchards of sapota are uncommon: a good homegrown tree and yet not a profitable commercial proposition. Not amenable to knife, eating a sapota is as clumsy an affair as eating a custard apple. But its sweetness is irresistible, same as custard apple.

The fruits have a dusty, brown coat, unattractive to look at. But the flesh is honey brown, supporting a good number of large, black, ovate seeds inside.. The seeds have an attractive appearance, black in colour with a whitish streak of hilumn along one of its edges.

There are quite a few varieties of sapota: some with large, spherical fruits, some with small, oval fruits and some with large, oval fruits. Generally speaking, the smaller ones are sweeter.

Keeping in mind all the "undesirable" traits of sapota, the plant breeding section of the Horticultural College and Research Institute at Periakulam developed a new variety of sapota, called PKM (Sa) 4.

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This variety bears fruits in clusters, and the spindle shaped fruits of 11 to 13 cms in length are suitable for the production of dry flakes, a trait that overcomes the shortcomings of poor keeping quality. The flesh is very sweet and so the dry flakes have excellent marketability. The yield is very high: a tree yields as much as 100 kg per year. The fruits of this variety are strongly attached to their stalks, overcoming the problem of fruitfall and also permitting staggered marketing, a fact of great significance in the matter of marketing the fruit.

The variety if fast-growing, coming to bear fruit around the fourth year after planting. It is drought-resistant and therefore can be grown in dry belts. Their spindle-shaped fruits have smooth, light brown skin with good market appeal. The flesh is crisp with light pinkish honey brown colour. Since the fruits are longer than the other varieties, they are highly suitable for making first grade quality of dried sapota flakes for export as well (Report: The Hindu, dt. 9.10.03)