Peter Brighton was amazed when he found the giant jackfruit. He had been watching it grow on his farm in far north Queensland, and when it came time to pick it from the tree, it was so heavy it needed two people to do the job.
“I was surprised when we cut it off and felt how heavy it was,” he says. “I grabbed it and my wife cut it – couldn’t do it by myself, it took two of us.”
Weighing in at 45 kilograms, it is the heaviest jackfruit that Brighton has ever grown on his tropical fruit farm, located in Feluga, south of Cairns.
The second heaviest was 38 kilograms.
And the jumbo fruit likely would’ve fetched a bumper retail price. Brighton says that, depending on the availability, jackfruit often sells for between $3 and $10 a kilogram, and can sell for as much as $15 at times.
“Every now and then we’ll have a munch on them in the paddock,” he says. “They sort of taste like a rock melon to me.”
While Brighton isn’t sure exactly why the jackfruit grew so big, he suspects it has something to do with the microbes in the soil.
“We’re big believers in biodynamic farming – just replacing the soil with what comes out of it, just the microbes,” he says.
“We make our own microbes … my old man’s a bit of an expert in all of that stuff.”
Brandan Espe, environmental officer at James Cook University, says jackfruit normally weigh 20-30 kilograms on average.
“They can get to 35 kilograms so that [45-kilogram fruit] is pretty impressive,” he says.
Espe says jackfruit thrive in extended wet seasons, which can mean less stress on the tree and more time for it to form fruit. The tropical climate in Cairns and south of the city has organic, rich soils that are perfect for jackfruit, according to Espe.
“It could be the microbes … those areas have really rich rainforest soil,” he says. “That’s very similar to the environment [where] these things are found in the wild [in south and south-east Asia].”
Jackfruit is a common meat substitute and often used in curries, salads or as a pulled pork alternative.
One of its closest relations is the fiddle leaf – a common indoor plant , according to Espe.
As more people move to plant-based diets, Espe believes the fruit has a bright future.
“It’s easier to produce on a larger scale. You can grow it more sustainably, you don’t need as much fertiliser as you would other crops,” he says.
“They’re a much hardier fruit so they’re less predated by fruit bats. They’re easier to grow than the mango and are almost unkillable in the tropics climate.”
For a reference for how popular jackfruit could become, all you have to do is look at avocados, Espe says.
“Like any product, the more demand there is, the more farms will change over to this crop,” he says.
“Avocados are a fantastic example. They used to be expensive and hard to get and then everyone wanted them so a lot of farmers transitioned to growing them and now they’re everywhere.”
