ISHS Acta Horticulturae 379: International Symposium on Quality of Fruit and Vegetables: Influence of Pre- and Post- Harvest Factors and Technology
WITHIN-TREE VARIABILITY IN FRUIT QUALITY AND MATURITY FOR ‘ROYAL GALA’ APPLE |
| Authors: | R.K. Volz, J.W. Palmer, H.M. Gibbs |
| Abstract:
The influence of several canopy factors on the variability of fruit maturity and quality was investigated on ‘Royal Gala’ apple. Flower clusters were tagged during bloom and flowering date, cluster position, size and orientation, wood age, and calliper and orientation were measured. For each tagged site, irradiance was measured immediately before harvest and bourse shoot length measured after harvest. Fruit were selectively picked from the tagged spurs and from the whole tree according to background colour over a four week maturation period. Fruit fresh weight, seed number and specific fruit quality characteristics were determined for each fruit immediately following harvest. Considerable variation in fruit quality and maturity was apparent at harvest. However tree canopy factors were generally weakly correlated with fruit attributes. Fruit weight was heaviest from one-year terminal wood and lightest from one-year lateral wood with spur borne fruit intermediate. Fruit in the southern quadrant of the tree were smaller. Fruit with more seeds, those harvested earlier, those from spurs with greater vigour and at a greater distance away from the trunk were heavier. Fruit harvested later were smaller, softer and had a higher starch pattern index. Fruit from more highly illuminated and higher vigour spurs are likely to be harvested earlier and therefore to have higher overall quality. | |
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