ISHS Acta Horticulturae 466: II Workshop on Pome Fruit
PREFACE: 12 YEARS RESEARCH ON POME FRUIT QUALITY |
| Author: | M. Blanke |
| Abstract:
This edition is dedicated to Professor Fritz Lenz who retires at the time this volume of Acta Horticulturae goes to print. On his initiative as the director of Institut für Obstbau und Gemüsebau of Bonn university, his staff took great care and efforts and often worked overtime to organise meetings on nitrate in plants, food and soil in 1983 in Bad Honnef, on regulation of photosynthesis in fruit trees in 1986 at Bonn-Bad Godesberg, on carbon economy of fruit in 1990 at Bonn-Röttgen and on specific replant disease in apple in 1986 at Bonn-Röttgen. A consecutive series of workshops on 'Regulation of photosynthesis in fruit trees' was initiated every 4 years in association with every international ISHS congress. All workshops brought together many national and international scientists who always enjoyed meeting at Bonn. They were interested to improve fruit quality by manipulating tree physiology in an environmentally-friendly way. One of the meetings and on Professor Lenz' initiative was the first workshop on Pome Fruit Quality in 1984 Bad Honnef, at a time when the term was hardly heard of, still lacked attempts of definition and was considered an unattractive research topic. In the 12 years since the first meeting on Pome Fruit Quality in Bad Honnef in 1984, fruit quality became a trendy research subject everywhere. It often amended or added a new aspect to existing research goals. Quality standards were introduced such as CIE for colour, penetrometer for firmness, soluble acids for sugar and total titrable acids for the fruit's acid contents, sugar:acid ratio for taste and maturity indexing to determine the optimum or earliest harvest date. Pome fruit quality has progressed from CA to ULO storage in this time period. Commercially available biosensors were developed in the meantime which have to prove their role in fruit testing. Non-invasive methods such as NIR and NMR became available for testing apples for soluble solids. These proceedings are also dedicated to Dr. Helmut Baumann who died on 7 Oct. '97 after long suffering while I compiled this issue next to his former office. On behalf of the organising committee of the research sites at Wädenswil, Oberwil and ETH Zürich, all participants of this meeting and readers of this edition are cordially invited to the third pome fruit quality meeting in October/November 1999 in Switzerland.
We thank Professor Lenz for his consistent encouragement and support over all the years to promote and improve fruit quality. | |
