Pomegranate: Florida’s next commercial fruit?

Pom facts for the home

The pomegranate is an attractive shrub or small tree for the home landscape. A pomegranate can be trained treelike to a single leader and grown as a graceful specimen.

· Planted 4 to 6 feet apart, a row of pomegranates makes a colorful and dense hedge, but they are at their best in the mixed shrub border.

· Pomegranates can be grown in a large container on the patio and brought indoors in winter. Use the tiny dwarfs for edging or in patio planters. They sometimes are used for bonsai.

· Harvest pomegranate fruits before they are fully mature (before they split) and store in a refrigerator to ripen. The fruit continues to ripen in cold storage, and the flavor only improves. They can be kept this way for six months.

· You’ll have to decide for yourself whether to suck the pulp from the seeds and then spit them out, or eat the seeds along with the pulp.

· Pomegranate juice has been likened to a combination of raspberry and strawberry. Jelly and wine are traditional uses of this delicious sub-acidic fruit juice.

— floridata.com

Interest in pomegranates is on the rise in Florida, due in large part to a University of Florida researcher’s work.

The pomegranate is a small, shrubby tree native to the Middle East. Its apple-sized fruits have a red exterior and numerous juicy, edible arils inside. The aril covers the pomegranate seed and has a sweet, tart taste. The fruit contains healthy compounds, such as antioxidants, nutrients and vitamins.

William Castle, a UF professor emeritus who specializes in horticultural science, began his research in 2009 at the university’s Central Florida Research Education Center at Lake Alfred in Polk County. He is examining nutrition and irrigation requirements, pest, weed and disease threats, maintenance needs and genetic differences among more than 80 types of pomegranates. He enlisted 30 growers around the state to plant pomegranates and evaluate their performance.

Castle suggests this as an alternative crop to citrus for small-scale producers, showing that pomegranates will grow well in Florida and have irrigation and fertilization requirements similar to that of citrus. He is convinced that pomegranates can be grown in Florida.

“It certainly can produce flowers, and it can set fruit. The trick now is to learn how to keep the fruit on the plant, and I think we’ll have something good,” he said.

Castle has distributed 5,000 plants to commercial producers and home growers.

Green Sea Farms in Hardee County is now growing more than 200 plants. The company is attracted to the fruit’s nutritious qualities and its potential as a high-dollar, niche-crop for small-scale producers. With two acres planted, plans include another two acres in production next year.

The company plans to sell pomegranate fruit and liners, or young plants intended to be replanted by other growers for later sale to customers.

Pomegranate can be grown for fresh fruit, juice, and also for use as an edible ornamental in home and business landscapes. Locally produced pomegranate juice and juice blends could soon be making their way to local stores.

“There’s a lot of opportunity in the ornamental plant trade, the fresh fruit trade at the local market basis, or producing the juice,” Castle said. In California, an acre of pomegranates can bring in more than $5,000 in revenue with fresh pomegranates selling for up to $2 a fruit.

“It is a very profitable business in California,” he said. “And if we can achieve similar yields, we can sell fresh fruit at similar prices.”

Karen Stauderman, a Volusia County residential horticulture extension agent, can be reached at 3100 E. New York Ave., DeLand, FL 32724-6497, 386-822-5778 or send email to [email protected].