Kiwifruit is not covered in hairs. It’s covered in trichomes. And only if you’re talking about green Actinidia chinensis var. deliciosa. But, why? One answer is: pretty much to keep it from drying out. Another is: because it’s a polyploid from western China and was kind of chosen at random to be the most commonly grown kiwifruit, and they’re not all fuzzy. Those aren’t mutually exclusive answers. Put on your ecophysiology hats and grab a paring knife.

Think of fruit growth as a balancing act between ingoing and outgoing fluxes. When the balance is positive, fruits grow. When it is negative, they shrink—or shrivel. The main fluxes in question are carbon and water, which enter the fruit from the xylem and phloem of the plant vascular system. Water is lost mainly to the atmosphere via transpiration (evaporative water lost through stomata and other pores and from the skin surface). Keeping the ledger positive isn’t an easy job for a fruit. Hot, dry, and windy weather encourages transpiration and thereby increases the odds that a fruit will experience water stress. Excessive sunlight may cause sunburn. Fruits also need to avoid attack from pathogens and herbivores before the seeds within mature. A fruit’s skin—its cuticle and epidermis—is its first line of defense against abiotic and biotic threats. Some fruits resort to creative coverings to get the job done.

Here I’ll take a close look at the skin of kiwifruits. Why, exactly, are they so fuzzy?

A heart-shaped green kiwifruit (Actinidia chinensis var. deliciosa), covered in fuzzy trichomes

Continue reading →