Domestication of Fruits

Domestication is a process of bringing wild species of fruits under human management. The prehistoric human chose and domesticated the fruits based on their needs since antiquity and it was the first step in the development of cultivated plants including fruits. Domestication of fruits involves selection of superior species and elite clones, their propagation, cultivation, pruning and training, storage and processing. The fruit cultivation originated during 4000 to 3000 BCE. The date palm is depicted in predynastic drawings of Egypt. The date palm, olive, grape, almond, fig and pomegranate are the fruit crops domesticated first. The temperate pome fruits apple, pear, quince, medlar and stone fruits apricot, cherry, peach and plum were domesticated by antiquity. The citrus fruits were domesticated early in China and the citron reached the West. The Asian tropical fruits mango and banana as well as American avocado, papaya and pineapple were domesticated in the prehistoric period. Domestication of fruit crops resulted from selection of elite natural variants with further improvement arising from recombinants produced by natural intercrosses involving selected types. The many genetic changes like breakdown of dioecy, loss of self-incompatibility, parthenocarpy and seed lessness, polyploidy, loss of toxic substance are associated with domestication of fruits. The mutations inducing hermaphroditism is associated with domestication in dioecious fruits strawberry, grape and papaya.

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