Loquat

The loquat is a plant belonging to the rosaceae family and it is of Japanese origin. Indigenes from China and Japan have been growing and using loquat for centuries. Initially the plant was produced in China, but it migrated to Japan over ten centuries ago, where it has been developed and grown with success since then. The immigrants from both China and Japan seem to have brought with them the loquat seeds to many other countries, as India and other European and Asian regions.

In America, the loquat was introduced in the late 19th century and then it was solely used for ornamental purposes. Only later they discovered other benefits of loquat and started using the plant for various purposes.

The plant presents small white flowers that bloom late, in the last month of autumn or even at the begging of winter, and they look like strange branch terminations. The fruits of this plant are found in very many shapes and colors. Because the loquat traveled so many countries and is a local plant in so many different regions, we can find small round or larger oval fruits, sometime yellow or red, varying in dimension from not even an inch long to more than two inches. Some fruit clusters are not as fertile as others, but generally, the late fruits contain the largest seed density.

If you intend to grow loquat trees, you are in luck because they are plants that are not so demanding when it comes to climate. The do best in sunny regions and bear the lack of precipitations very well, but they can also grow in a moderate climate with shade and moderate rain. When it comes to caring for the tree, too much fertilizer would ruin the crops, so they will not be expensive in this part of their life.

Harvesting loquat means you will have to pick up the fruits form the trees when they are completely grown. This usually occurs after 3 months from the moment the first flowers appeared, usually at the begging of spring. Because the individual fruits are very hard to be separated from their fruit clusters, people often cut off the entire cluster and only then try to separate individual fruits form it, trying this way not to harm the tree itself.

The loquat fruits are quite similar with apples from many points. Not that they look the same, but they have a compatible active ingredients composition. They are full of vitamins and pectin, and also contain a lot of natural sugar, satisfied the need for sweets that children and some adults experience.