Tenerife Invests €600K in Rare Fruit Tree "Noah's Ark"
Tenerife's island government is making a major investment in the Las Llanadas farm in Los Realejos, the Canary Islands' largest site for preserving over 100 unique cold-climate fruit tree varieties as a "living genetic bank."
Tenerife's island government is making a major investment to protect a special collection of Canary Island fruit trees, often called a "Noah's Ark." The Las Llanadas farm in Los Realejos is the largest site in the Canary Islands dedicated to preserving cold-climate fruit trees.
The island government, through its Department of Agriculture, will spend 600,000 euros on this farm. It acts as a "living genetic bank" for fruits like apples, pears, and plums, as well as other similar pome and stone fruits. The company Tragsa will be responsible for maintaining the farm's plots.
The Las Llanadas farm is home to more than 100 types of fruit trees. Many of these varieties are unique to Tenerife and were almost lost forever. This 25,000-square-meter site, located on the mid-slopes in northern Tenerife, was unused until it was brought back into service at the start of 2023.
Today, Las Llanadas is used to study the characteristics and genetics of these trees and to create "backup copies" of fruit tree collections. This means having extra plants from other locations, ensuring that a disease or disaster won't completely wipe out a rare variety.
This project to improve and maintain the Realejos farm is planned to continue until 2029. Valentín González, Tenerife's Councillor for Agriculture, described Las Llanadas as "the largest cold-climate fruit tree conservation farm in the Canary Islands."
Since its recovery began, the island government has invested significantly in Las Llanadas to turn it into "a reference center." The Los Realejos site also works closely with the Tenerife Agricultural Biodiversity Conservation Center (Ccbat) to preserve many pome and stone fruit trees "ex situ," meaning outside of a laboratory setting.
About two years ago, the Las Llanadas farm was upgraded with several new facilities. These include a warehouse, a cold storage room, a plant health room, drying rooms, bathrooms, changing rooms, a small office, and a meeting room. A special training area was also built for young farmers. Additionally, the entire irrigation system was improved to use water more efficiently across the cultivated land.
This includes an investment of over 400,000 euros in December 2023, bringing the total amount spent on this agricultural land in Los Realejos to over one million euros.