EFFECTS OF GROWTH REGULATORS ON THE ABSORPTION AND DISTRIBUTION OF CALCIUM IN FRUITS

The effects of growth regulators on physiological fruit disorders are well documented (Sharples, 1973; Wertheim, 1972); some of these disorders are associated with an inadequacy of the fruit Ca content (Shear, 1975a and b). It is also known that fruit development, maturation and senescence are controlled by endogenous hormones (Dilley, 1969; Sacher, 1973) and affected by applications of growth regulators (Looney, 1973). The respiratory metabolism of the fruit, specially during maturation, is related to its calcium content (Faust et al., 1972, 1974; Faust, 1975).

To the reviewers, it seems worth taking into consideration all this apparently dispersed information in order to obtain supplementary data on the specific subject of this review, in spite of possible terminology problems in storage disorders. In these conditions, our task however becomes more delicate and we hope that the readers are fully aware of this situation and will consider this review as an attempt to open the discussion and stimulate research in a promising field.

Growth regulators are here classified in families without considering whether they were natural or artificial; we have limited ourself to chemicals normally used as growth regulators. We did not consider any pesticide although some fungicides are able to alter the growth pattern of the plant and also the accumulation of calcium in apple; but in this field, information is still very fragmentary.

Download Adobe Acrobat Reader (free software to read PDF files)