Huge demand for latex-less jackfruit cited

MANILA, Philippines - There is currently a huge demand for jackfruit or langka, that delectable golden fruit that exudes a heavenly scent and taste used in flavoring pastries and ice creams, or served as dessert. 

Jackfruit is the most expensive fruit in the market today, with its price ranging from P250 to P300 per kilo. 

Jackfruit plantations in the Visayas were devastated by typhoons Yolanda and Ruby, and in Southern Luzon by typhoon Glenda.  Most jackfruits are planted mostly in backyards which explains  supply could not keep up with demand. 

Before the massive destruction wrought by Super Typhoon Yolanda in 2013, the Visayan region had a vast plantation of jackfruit or “langka” and other fruit varieties like mango, rambutan, durian, pummelo, and a host of other popular native fruit trees. 

At the Visayas State University in Leyte, jackfruit seeds bear fruit after six to eight years from planting. Due to the massive destruction wrought by the typhoons in 2013 and 2014, it will take at least six years for the university’s fruit tree program to fully recover. 

Double-roots as props vs typhoons

The plight of the Visayan region finds answer in the latex-less jackfruit, which bears fruits after 2-1/2 to three years as these species are the result of cloning and double-rootstock technology. 

The double- triple-rooted latexless jackfruit is nature’s sturdy creation designed to combat strong winds as shown in places where they have been planted. Whereas single-rooted jackfruit trees easily get toppled and uprooted, the multiple-rooted seedlings stand proud and tall, and has prolific fruiting capabilities. 

Now, jackfruit is imported in huge quantities owing to the demand by food processors. Demand for jackfruit in sugar syrup is high in the local market and now a popular export item in the US and places where there are Filipinos.  It can also be made as “dried langka” much like dried mango as popular dessert. 

The devastated fruit tree farm owners from Quezon to the Cagayan Valley provinces are in a mad scramble for fruit tree seedlings to rehabilitate their destroyed crops.  Thus, for their needs, the correct certified species of seedlings for rehabilitation must be the prime consideration.

Double-rooted technology 

No less than Agriculture Secretary Proceso J. Alcala had aired his concern about this in one of his many sorties in the “Pangkat Kaunlaran” program hosted by Louie Tabing and aired live over TV and radio station DZMM.  He had hinted that to speed up recovery of the annihilated fruit tree population especially in the Visayas, he would push for propagation utilizing “double-rooted, even triple-rooted technology,” as popularized in the country by “Ka Bernie Dizon.” 

Alcala had often visited the botanic fruit garden and techno-demo center at Ninoy Aquino Parks and Wildlife in Quezon City being managed by Dizon – the country’s top pomologist. He had seen, and tasted the fruits of Dizon’s labor started way back in the 1990s.  

This project, a cooperative venture of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and Dizon for over two decades now, had introduced to the country’s farmers different varieties of high-value fruit trees and served as the learning center for farmers as well as enriched scientific studies by agriculture students and government technicians. 

Fast grower, fruits early 

Dizon’s counsel for fruit tree farmers to plant double-rooted seedling for every downed tree is rooted on the fact that fruiting is assured in three years’ time, or shorter.  These sturdy seedlings grow fast and bear fruits much quicker than their single-rooted counterparts, which gestate in six years, or more. 

 Moreover, double-rooted technology results in high-efficiency growth, and continuous fruiting sustainability, he stressed. 

Over the years, Dizon had notched several breakthroughs in the propagation of native as well as imported species of high-value fruit trees, the most popular of which are the latex-less jackfruit or langka, Luz calamansi, “Sweet Angge guyabano,”  seedless atis, pummelo, grapes, and Longkong lanzones. 

Dollar earners 

Excited about this most recent breakthroughs, Dizon said a massive planting of fast-growing, prolific and continuous-fruiting multiple-rooted high-value fruit trees in strategic locations throughout the country would place the local fruit industry, at par with Thailand, Malaysia and China and other Asian fruit exporting countries. 

Dizon is most ecstatic about his latex-less jackfruit, what with the native single-rooted variety bearing fruits after about six years, whereas his double-rooted latexless gestates in just two-and-a-half to three years. And it is a fast grower, too, with the proper care. 

The latex-less jackfruit’s flesh (lamukot in the vernacular) is colored orange, without latex, and bigger than its local counterpart. Even the sutla is sweet and edible. 

False-latexless flood markets 

Dizon, however, hastened to say that some pseudo-varieties of the latex-less jackfruit had recently been circulated in the market by some unknowing growers. The true and genuine variety is easily distinguished from the pseudo-kind by its pale yellow color, and has latex.  

To ensure that the latexless jackfruit retains its original characteristics of orange color, prolific fruiting, latex-less and fast growth, Dizon confided his formula: The scion of original latex-less jackfruit is grafted to two native rootstocks, which process makes the imported variety grow faster and bear fruits after two-and-a half to three  years, prolific and bears fruits continuously.  “To do otherwise is to do injustice to the latex-less jackfruit tree reputation,” he said. 

He said the latex-less jackfruit has its Malaysian origin introduced to the country in 1995 by a Filipina who married a Malaysian.  That it did not prosper well is because the resulting seedlings came direct from seeds and not inarched or subjected to double- or multiple-rooted technology. 

Dizon’s latex-less, fast grower 

Dizon cited a research made by fruit expert Dr. Ernesto B. Pantastico, showing that latex-less jackfruit grown directly from seeds has a short life span of from three to six years. It is also susceptible to “pythopthora root rot.” 

Meanwhile, a fast grower, the “genuine latex-less jackfruit” grown by Dizon in his plant nursery grows robust and add several inches a month.  

Dizon’s source of latex-less jackfruit originates from an original tree which he had nurtured with extra and tender loving care, adding, “the seedlings are safe from “pythopthora root rot,” certified as true latexless and promise to last forever.”