ISHS Acta Horticulturae 628: XXVI International Horticultural Congress: Issues and Advances in Postharvest Horticulture
INVESTIGATING INTERNAL BROWNING OF TASMANIAN 'PINK LADY' APPLES |
| Authors: | G. Brown, L. Schimanski, D. Jennings |
| Keywords: | Internal browning, apple, fruit, Pink Lady, maturity, rootstock |
| Abstract:
Internal browning has been observed in controlled atmosphere stored 'Pink Lady' apples. This browning is located in the outer cortex of the flesh, initially the symptoms are a slight grey colour that is barely visible, however, discolouration may become severe and follow the vascular traces toward the cortex of the fruit. This disorder was first noted in the 2000 Australian marketing season and has the potential to cause financial losses to growers and importers. The aim of this project was to identify the effect of rootstock and harvest date on the incidence of internal browning. Common rootstocks ('MM106', 'MM106/9', 'MM26') showed no difference in the incidence of internal browning (11 - 16% of fruit), however, the dwarfing rootstock 'Ottawa 3' displayed a doubling of the incidence of the disorder (32%). Harvest date also had an impact, with more mature fruit displaying greater internal browning. Fruit harvested one week before commercial harvest had some internal browning (10% of fruit). However, fruit harvested one week after commercial harvest had a much greater incidence of the disorder (28% of fruit). Crop load was found to have no influence on the incidence of browning. However, root health was important with fruit from trees that later showed symptoms of root disease having dramatically increased levels of internal browning. It is recommended that (1) care should be taken in the selection of rootstocks, (2) growers of ‘Pink Lady’ pick earlier than they would normally consider mature, as soon as the starch pattern begins to show any sign of breakdown. Maturity indicators from this study suggest that the fruit have adequate sugar and size to harvest one week before the current commercial harvest and (3) fruit from orchards suspected of having root disease problems should not be stored for long durations. | |
Download Adobe Acrobat Reader (free software to read PDF files) | |
