Growing Regions

Growing Conditions

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.

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 when 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.