Growing apples in Jamaica

Despite the successes in places such as eastern Africa and Malaysia, it is stills a common belief among Jamaicans that the Malus domestica can't be grown in their country. This notion can be traced back to the arrival of the European settlers (English) in the Caribbean during the seventeen century. These European colonist brought with them their favorite fruits such as apples, pears, peaches , blueberries, etc. Unfortunately, the seeds of many of these fruits failed to germinate due to the hot and humid tropical environment. Seeing this, the English abandoned their attempts to cultivate temperate fruits in the region and began focusing more on tropical and subtropical crops.
Most of the current literature on apple cultivation still cite the failure of the early colonists in the Caribbean to cultivate temperate fruits. As it relates to cultivating apples in the tropics, I will try to provide my own experiences in order to demystify growing apples in Jamaica or other similar regions .

Below are a few common misconceptions of growing apples in tropical climates.

1. Apples require cold periods to grow.

Based on my experience, chilling hours are needed for the apple seeds to germinate. In the tropical regions, this can be done through a process called stratification (Where growers use refrigeration to simulate winter in order to break the seed dormancy period). The stratification of seeds usually last for three months or even a fortnight.

2. Apple trees can't stand heat.

Again, yes and no. Yes, young seedlings must be shaded for a three week period before they develop strong leaves, but after that, they require at least eight hours of direct sunlight to grow vigorously. Warning, before putting them in the sun make sure the leaves of seedling are not soft, or else they'll die from dehydration.

3. Apple trees are hard to maintain.

Apple trees are one of the easiest plants to maintain. You can water them at least once per-day and not worry about sun damage to new leaves. Surprisingly, apple trees are also very easy to train and prune because they tend to grow short, especially in the tropics. Also, from observation, apples trees particularly enjoy rain water; young plants seem to develop new leaves rapidly and form new branches during the rainy seasons.

Overall, I hope this information that i have provided on growing apples in Jamaica can provide new insights and ideas to anybody living in a similar tropical region. Likewise, I'll continuing posting information on growing other temperate fruits in Jamaica.