ABSTRACT
The kiwi fruit (Actinidia deliciosa (A. Chev.) C.-F. Liang and A.R. Ferguson) is probably the most important of the few fruit crops to have been domesticated in the 20th century. Commercial kiwi fruit cultivation began in New Zealand in about 1930 and spread worldwide throughout temperate and subtropical zones from around 1970 onwards (Ferguson et al., 1996). Total world production, currently about one million tonnes of fruit per year, gives the kiwi fruit industry a prominent place in the fresh fruit market.
