Pastures Past: Before ‘kiwifruit’, Chinese gooseberry an ‘attractive fruit’ in 1928

Kiwifruit were originally known as Chinese Gooseberries. Photo / PhotoMIX Company / Pexels

The Country takes a look at the world of farming back in the day.

With a name like kiwifruit, it is easy to assume the fuzzy brown produce is native to New Zealand, however, they originated from China.

Seeds were brought to New Zealand in 1904 by the principal of Whanganui Girls’ College, Mary Isabel Fraser, who had been visiting mission schools in China.

Whanganui nurseryman Alexander Allison is credited with first planting them in 1906 and the vines fruited in 1910.

People thought they tasted like gooseberries and, considering where they came from, the name Chinese gooseberry was born.

In 1928, horticulturalist Hayward Wright developed and commercialised a variety with green flesh, which became known as Hayward.

New Zealand began exporting the fruit to the US in the 1950s but it was the height of the Cold War and the term Chinese gooseberry was difficult to sell to an American market.

So, in June 1959, Jack Turner of the produce company Turners and Growers suggested the name kiwifruit and the rest is history - until 1997 when it was rebranded again as Zespri Kiwifruit, partly as a way to distinguish New Zealand from the produce of other countries.

Whatever the name, the Chinese gooseberry seemed to have made an impression in the New Zealand Herald in the late 1920s, where it was described as “attractive,” and “handsome and vigorous”.

The Chinese Gooseberry

An attractive fruit

Available during winter

NZ Herald, July 6, 1928

A new and most attractive fruit which has been slow in coming into popular favour simply because its good qualities are not sufficiently known, is the Chinese gooseberry.

Scientifically, it is known as actinidia Chinesis. It was introduced into this country some years ago from China.

A grower who knows it well describes the Chinese gooseberry as one of the most valuable fruits ever introduced into the country.

It is a winter fruit and thus comes on the market at a time of scarcity when it is most needed and appreciated.

Wanganui Girls’ College principal Mary Fraser, introduced the Chinese gooseberry to New Zealand. Photo / Whanganui Girls' College

It is a fruit that can be easily turned to any use, and is equally suitable for bottling, for jam or jelly, for baking in pies or for eating raw with sugar and cream.

When properly ripe it has a delicious flavour, best described as a combination of English gooseberry and rockmelon.

It gives off an aroma something like that of a rock melon. When eaten unripe it is tasteless and coarse like the rind of a cucumber.

In size the Chinese gooseberry is much the same as an ordinary passion fruit, of bronze colour, and covered with fine hair.

This hair must be rubbed off before the fruit is put away to ripen.

The plant is a wonderfully prolific vine and as much as 501b. of fruit has been taken from one three-year-old vine.

Care should be taken to grow it from grafts, as seedlings cannot be relied upon for size and may take 10 years before they begin to bear. A grafted plant will bear in from two to three years.

Another strong point in favour of the Chinese gooseberry is that it has a prolonged period of ripening, extending over several months.

They can generally be first gathered about the last week in June, and it is usual to store them to ripen.

If left on their vines the frost nips off the leaves and exposes the fruit, and the birds, who are good judges in such matters, rapidly show their appreciation of the quality and flavour of the berries.

The whole plant is ornamental as well as useful, and may be trained to adorn an archway with its handsome leaves. Its flower is of a very pretty creamy colour and is sometimes as much as two inches across.

The Chinese gooseberry could very easily be cultivated commercially.

Chinese Gooseberry

Cultivation methods

NZ Herald, July 13, 1929

Regarding that handsome vine the Chinese gooseberry (Actinidia chinensis) a Californian correspondent, writing to a contemporary publication, states: —” The several notes that have appeared recently on this fine vine, and the fact that one correspondent has the fruiting form, prompts the remark that if this is also in cultivation it is the easiest possible matter to graft it on the male form and have both.

“We have found this actinidia the easiest subject to graft; scions will unite overnight, as may be proved by using two branches, grafting them, and placing them in a warm, moist house, and the next day new cambium will have formed.

Chinese gooseberry cultivation methods made it to the New Zealand Herald in 1929. Image / Papers Past

“Actinidia chinensis is hard to root from cuttings. It may be layered easily; with us it will climb to the top of the highest trees.

“The fruits are very palatable, easily peeled after scalding, and in China they are making an excellent “gooseberry” jam of it.

“Seeds, when available, are germinated readily, and the seedlings when large enough are easily grafted with both forms, if desired.

“There is a suspicion here that there are plants that possess the ability to fruit when planted alone.

“We have seen this occur, and can only reason that some individuals possess both reproductive organs.”

The commercial possibilities of Chinese gooseberry remain to be proved, but it appears to be hardier than was at first expected, and is doing well in manyplaces in this country.

Being handsome and vigorous, the plant also has a considerable ornamental value.

- Source: Papers Past