Asian pear production and future trends of industrial development in Thailand
2002
Subhadrabandhu, Suranant | Prapthuk, Wirat | Thanaruj, Chinnapan
Asian pear production in Thailand is very small compared with the production in some Asian countries, like Korea, Japan, China and India. In the South East Asian region, Thailand and Myanmar grow the Asian pear. The production of Asian pear in Thailand is confined to the highland areas in northern Thailand, where the climate is rather mild and a period of chilling occurs in winter to break bud dormancy, although this period is very short. In Thailand, research, extension and marketing of Asian pear are conducted under the assistance of the Royal Project Foundation. Major research includes 1) the physiology of flowering, which specifically examines dormancy breaking, rest avoidance, flower bud grafting; 2) studies on identifying suitable rootstocks under low chilling climates; 3) breeding and selection for high quality Asian pear with low chilling requirements. The extension work includes training growers from various villages on the general aspects of production such as propagation, training and pruning trees, compost making, fertilization and irrigation, fruit bagging, pests and disease control, harvesting, grading and packaging etc. In addition to training, the extension work also includes the establishment of demonstration plots at private grower's sites as well as at the Royal Project Development Centers, which are located in various villages in the highlands. This is aimed at applying technologies developed by researchers and adapting them into practical use before extending their use to growers. The marketing of Asian pear fruits is currently only for local consumption. In the future, with the improvement of varieties, we hope to produce high quality Asian pears to the upper market to compete with the imported Asian pear fruits. The problems facing the development of Asian pear in Thailand and the strategic plan to solve these problems are presented.
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