The first step to planting breadfruit trees for hunger alleviation, reforestation, or just to have a delicious and productive tree for home use is to find out if they will grow where you want to plant them. This map of Potential Breadfruit Growing Areas illustrates where temperature and rainfall data suggest conditions are favorable for planting, growing, and production.
Find out if breadfruit grows near you. View the map and zoom into any area in the world. Search for your community to see if breadfruit will grow where you live.
Growing Conditions
Breadfruit has a wide range of adaptability to ecological conditions. It grows best in equatorial lowlands below 600-650 m but is found at elevations up to 1550 m. It flourishes at 21-32° C and does not yield well where the temperature exceeds 40° or drops to 5° C. Below 5° C, the trees begin to show signs of cold damage—browning, curling and drying leaves that will die and fall from the tree. The latitudinal limits are approximately 17° N and S; maritime climates extend that range to the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. Optimum annual rainfall is 1500-3000 mm, but trees can yield regularly on Pacific atolls that receive 1000 mm. Deep, fertile, well-drained soils are preferred although some varieties are adapted to the shallow sandy soils of coral atolls.