Soursop

• Oval/heart shaped fruit.
• Weighs 4.5 – 7kg.
• Leathery looking but tender inedible skin, from which many spines protrude.
• The tip of the spines break off easily when the fruit is ripe.
• Skin is dark green becoming yellow/green when ripe.
• Flesh is cream coloured and granular and separated easily from the mass of white, fibrous, juicy segments, much like flakes of fish.
• A soft pithy core.
• Pineapple like in aroma.
• Musky, subacid in flavour.
• In each segment there is a single, oval, smooth, black seed.
• There can be up to 200 seeds i.e.. segments in a fruit.

The soursop tree is low-branching and bushy, but slender because of its upturned limbs, and reaches a height of 7.5 9m. Normally an evergreen, the leaves are alternate, smooth, glossy, dark-green on the upper surface and lighter beneath, oblong, elliptic or narrow-obovate, pointed at both ends. The flowers which are borne singly, may emerge anywhere on the trunk, branches or twigs. They are short stalked, plump, with yellow-green outer petals.

Soursops of least acid flavour and least fibrous consistency are cut in sections and the flesh eaten with a spoon. The seeded pulp may be chopped and used in salads, served with seafood or pureed and used as the basis for a refreshing drink.

The soursop is truly tropical. It will not tolerate low temperatures or frosts well and needs shelter from strong winds. Best growth is achieved in deep, rich, well-drained, semi-dry soil, but the soursop tree can be, and is commonly grown in acidic and sandy soil.

The soursop is usually grown from seed. Germination takes from 15-30 days. Soursop seedlings are generally the best stock for propagation through grafting onto custard apples. The tree grows rapidly and begins to bear in 3-5 years. In Queensland, well-watered trees have attained 4.5-5.5m in 6-7 years.

Of the 60 or more species of the genus Annona, the soursop is the most tropical, the largest fruited and the only one lending itself well to preserving and processing. Oviedo, in 1526, described the soursop as abundant in the West Indies and in northern South America. It is today found in Bermuda and the Bahamas, both wild and cultivated, from sea-level to an altitude of 1150m throughout the West Indies and from southern Mexico to Peru and Argentina. It was one of the first fruit trees carried from America to the Old World Tropics where it has become widely distributed from south-eastern China to Australia and the warm lowlands of eastern and western Africa.

Botanical Name: Annona muricata (Annonaceae)

Alternative Names: Guanabana