Faculteit Landbouwkundige en Toegepaste Biologische Wetenschappen Academiejaar 2001 – 2002 DISTRIBUTION AND POTENTIAL OF CHERIMOYA (ANNONA CHERIMOLA MILL.) AND HIGHLAND PAPAYAS (VASCONCELLEA SPP.) IN ECUADOR VERSPREIDING EN POTENTIEEL VAN CHERIMOYA (ANNONA CHERIMOLA MILL.) EN HOOGLANDPAPAJA’S (VASCONCELLEA SPP.) IN ECUADOR ir. Xavier SCHELDEMAN Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirement for the degree of Doctor (Ph.D.) in Applied Biological Sciences Proefschrift voorgedragen tot het behalen van de graad van Doctor in de Toegepaste Biologische Wetenschappen Op gezag van Rector: Prof. dr. A. DE LEENHEER Decaan: Promotor: Prof. dr. ir. O. VAN CLEEMPUT Prof. dr. ir. P. VAN DAMME The author and the promotor give authorisation to consult and to copy parts of this work for personal use only. Any other use is limited by Laws of Copyright. Permission to reproduce any material contained in this work should be obtained from the author. De auteur en de promotor geven de toelating dit doctoraatswerk voor consultatie beschikbaar te stellen en delen ervan te kopiëren voor persoonlijk gebruik. Elk ander gebruik valt onder de beperkingen van het auteursrecht, in het bijzonder met betrekking tot de verplichting uitdrukkelijk de bron vermelden bij het aanhalen van de resultaten uit dit werk. Prof. dr. ir. P. Van Damme X. Scheldeman Promotor Author Faculty of Agricultural and Applied Biological Sciences Department Plant Production Laboratory of Tropical and Subtropical Agronomy and Ethnobotany Coupure links 653 B-9000 Ghent Belgium Acknowledgements __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Acknowledgements After two years of reading, data processing, writing and correcting, this Ph.D. thesis is finally born. Like Veerle’s pregnancy of our two children, born during this same period, it had its hard moments relieved luckily enough with pleasant ones. Many people contributed, both scientifically and mentally, to this work. I will attempt to acknowledge them all. Hopefully this will not lead to personal consequences… First of all, my thanks go to my promotor Prof. dr. ir. P. Van Damme. He was the one that brought up the idea of writing this Ph.D. at the moment I was still doing fieldwork as a Vl.I.R.-expert in Ecuador. As head of the Laboratory Subtropical and Tropical Agriculture and Ethnobotany, he always supported me and gave me all facilities necessary, and his spontaneous attitude made working conditions as pleasant as possible. I am also very grateful to the staff and colleagues of the Laboratory Subtropical and Tropical Agriculture and Ethnobotany: Annita Goethals, as the ‘mother’ of the lab, for coffee and tea and for her guidance through the administration of the university; Johan Geirnaert, for his humour and ‘fatherly’ care of our plants in the greenhouse; Ina Vandebroek, for the distracting chats on Latin America and Belgium; and Tinneke Dirckx for her support and relaxing attendance. Many thanks to all fellow students present at the laboratory: our Iranian friends Abolfazl Ranjbar Fardooei and Rozbeh Modarressi (still struggling with the names) for their ever-friendly presence; our African companions Bernard Lelou and Amadou Malé Kouyate for the African atmosphere they brought in the lab and Suhaz Bobade for the Indian touch. As the present study was based on four years of fieldwork in Ecuador my gratitude goes to all people who made this period the most enjoyable of this Ph.D. First of all on a professional level, although the border is often vague, all colleagues of the ‘Centro Andino de Tecnología Rural’ (CATER) of the ‘Universidad Nacional de Loja’: i.c. José Romero, Vicente Ureña, Vicente Apolo, Eduardo Cueva, Victor Briceño, Teodoro Feijóo, and all the other ones that slip my mind. Their optimistic attitude brought the Latin spirit into the numerous field trips and their warm-heartedness brought some heat during cold days in Loja. Merit goes to the international colleagues Kate Gold, Pierre Pallares, Veerle Van den Eynden, Imma Verheyen, Mark Marissens for compensating the Ecuadorian lifestyle when necessary. Finally our presence in Ecuador would not have been as successful without the indispensable distraction brought by Gwendolyn and Marlon, Yves and Susana, Pierre and Marielle, Rodrigo, Ivan, Ballardo, Carmen, Boudewijn and Catherine and Señora Luz. Muchísimas gracias por el tiempo maravilloso, el calor humano y la vida ecuatoriana. Nunca vamos a olvidar a ustedes y a Ecuador. Un día nos veremos de nuevo… In Ecuador I also would like to thank dr. Jaime Estrella (DENAREF/INIAP) for his support on the work on plant genetic resources, Ing. Juan Léon (Programa Fruticultura, INIAP) for sharing experiences on cherimoya and dr. Ochoa (INIAP) for I Acknowledgements __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ providing feedback and continuing research on Vasconcellea in Ecuador. Special thanks goes to the International Society for Horticultural Science (ISHS) for their collaboration on organising the First International Symposium on Cherimoya that brought our local investigation in a more international perspective. I want to thank some international scientists for sharing experiences on cherimoya: dr. Massip Farré, dr. Hermoso González and dr. López Encina (Estación Experimental La Mayora, Spain), dr. Broadley (Maroochy Research Centre, Australia), dr. Cautín, dr. Fassio and dr. Gardiazabal (Universidad Católica Valparaiso, Chile), dr. Marroquin and dr. Augustín (Universidad Autónoma Chapingo, Mexico) and dr. Chatrou (Utrecht University, the Netherlands). dr. Coppens d’Eeckenbrugge (CIRAD-FLHOR/IPGRI, Colombia) convinced me of the value of the research work and thus also played a role in persuading me to write this Ph.D. The presented study is the result of a collaboration between many people. Besides the staff of CATER, I also want to thank the contribution of M.Sc. students of the ‘Universidad Nacional de Loja’ and Ghent University. Special thanks goes to Lieven Bydekerke, Richard Flores, Saskia De Smet, Yuri Jiménez, Mark Vandersmissen, Wouter Vanhove and Veerle Heyens. Research without any money is difficult. This research and development project was financed by different Belgian federal and Flemish organisations. I am very grateful to the Flemish Association for Development Cooperation and Technical Assistance (VVOB) and the Flemish Interuniversity Council (VLIR., budget 130D0194) who financed the work in Ecuador through the DGIC. (Directorate General of International Cooperation). A grant from Special Research Fund (BOF) was attributed to me to complete this Ph.D. at Ghent University. I am grateful to Prof. dr. ir. Debergh (Ghent University), dr. Drew (Griffith University, Australia), Prof. dr. Malaisse (Gembloux University, Belgium) and dr. Van Mele (CABI, United Kingdom) for accepting a position in the reading committee leading to valuable comments, and Prof. dr. ir. H. Beeckman (Ghent University), dr. G. Coppens d’Eeckenbrugge (CIRAD-FLHOR/IPGRI, Colombia), Prof. dr. Goetghebeur (Ghent University), Prof. dr. Gheysen (Ghent University), dr. Padulosi (IPGRI, Syria) and Prof. dr. Verloo (Ghent University) as members of the examination committee. Last but definitely not least I want to express my gratitude to my wife Veerle whose love was an invaluable source of inspiration and energy. Although often a sink of energy, our children Merel and Seppe, who were also both “created” during these last two years, always formed a very agreeable and pleasant distraction from my computer life. My parents, Frans and Brigitte, and brother, Kristof, also contributed considerably by giving all encouragement and devotion. To all friends, also forming an essential support for me, I just can repeat the same: thank you very much. One group of people have not been mentioned yet but they also contributed considerably to the successful realisation of this study. I am very grateful to all farmers that participiated, often with great enthusiasm, in the data collection. They II Acknowledgements __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ did not only offer fruits and knowledge, but were by their kindness, despite difficult living conditions, always a source of motivation for me. I sincerely hope that these results and their diffusion may lead to concrete steps to improve their future situation. III Table of Contents __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ TABLE OF CONTENTS Abbreviations and Acronyms.....................................................................................VIII Summary ......................................................................................................................X Samenvatting............................................................................................................ XIV Resumen .................................................................................................................