What Type of Fruit is a Pineberry - Grow Pineberries this Summer

You may have heard of the pineberry in the news, or perhaps it passed you by and you are looking at the title of this hub thinking, "What on earth is a pineberry?"

It's a type of fruit, as you may have gathered from the title, and it looks like a small strawberry, sort of, but tastes very like pineapple.

it has a distinctive tropical fruit taste which should satisfy the current increased consumer demand for tropical fruits, at a fraction of the price.

Unlike the ordinary strawberries we grow, the flesh stays white, but the seeds turn red when the fruit is ripe, just as you can see on the photograph to the right.

It does look just like a white strawberry except for the red seed!

The pineberry has been dubbed with this name for the British market, where the plant is set to be released in 2012 for the first time.

Right at this minute, growers are busily rooting baby plants for the expected mad rush to buy this delectable fruiting plant.

According to a hurriedly drawn up entry in Wikipedia, the pineberry is a strawberry cultivar that is largely grown under glass.

It was first developed in Germany in 2009, where it was called Ananaserdbeere which roughly translates as pineapple strawberry.

With its pale pink through to pale orange pulp, the fruit starts off green like normal strawberries, then turn white or cream colored when ripe.

Pineberries are the results of cross breeding between the South American strawberry, Fragaria chiloensis, and the more common Fragaria virginiana (wild strawberry), from North America.

It took six years of selective breeding to develop the pineberry plant which is finally being commercially grown and released to the public.

These fruiting plants are very disease resistant and healthy.

Unfortunately due to their small size and relatively low yield, it is uneconomical for commercial companies to grow pineberries for sale, and so the decision has been made to release the plants and allow us all to grow our own for our own consumption.

In Chile, they have a very similar fruit called the Frutilla Chilena, but it is not the same as its botanical name is Fragaria chiloensis which is only one half of the parentage of the European pineberry.

As you can read for yourself from the wikipedia entry above, there was some doubt as to whether the pineberry was a real fruit, or the result of an April Fool's joke.

This was because UK retailers Waitrose had agreed to stock the fruit and their advertising campaign started just before April the 1st, which of course is April Fool's day.

As Waitrose had previously brought out a joke fruit called a 'pinana' - a pineapple banana - it was readily assumed that the pineberry was a similar joke.

At around the same time, a new SEO internet company started up, called Pineberry, and they used mock fruit on their website.

The result was that the public did not believe the pineberry existed as a real fruit.

So far there are three cultivars.

White Pine Pineberries

Best grown under glass, sunlight will tinge the ripened fruits a bluish-pink color. Kept out of direct sunlight, the White Pine are white with red seeds, and a gentle pineapple flavor. This is a very strong grower which produces lots of runners each year.

White Carolina Pineberries

This variety is also best kept out of direct sunlight because not only does the flesh turn pink, it is susceptible to leaf scorch and may require the use of fungicides once damaged.

White D Pineberries

This is the most prolific fruiter, and also its fruits are consistently larger than the other varieties. Scent and flavor are exceptional.

All varieties are expected to be improved upon the coming years as more and more people grow pineberry plants, and the experts are still working on bringing us even better ones.

You will need to buy the plant or a plug because pineberries do not grow true from seed. Being hybrids, what you are likely to get instead is a throwback to one or other parent.

Just a warning, should you see Purple Pineberry seeds for sale, they refer to a completely different type of plant that is quite probably illegal where you live.

Burpee sell the White Pine Pineberry, although they apparently can't sell to the following areas - AA, AE, AK, AP, AS, FM, GU, HI, MH, MP, PR, PW, VI due to Japanese Beetle quarantine restrictions.

For other suppliers, have a look at the link I have provided.