Avocado lenticel damage: The cause and the effect on fruit quality

Abstract

Avocado fruit can develop small, 1–5 mm diameter brown spots immediately after harvest. These symptoms are typically more severe among fruit harvested following rain. The incidence of the brown spots increased significantly when fruit were artificially imbibed with water, but not when immersed in water. Morphological examination with the light and electron microscope showed there was a change in lenticels that was caused by water uptake. In unaffected fruit, large intercellular spaces were observed in cells below the lenticels, but when the fruit had taken up water, these cells became turgid and filled these spaces. Swollen cells associated with lenticels were more distended than other cells in the mesocarp, because the expansion of mesocarp cells was limited by adjacent cells. Swollen cells in the lenticels became brown more rapidly than other cells, probably because their turgidity made them more susceptible than other cells. Cells close to the surface were also more susceptible to discoloration than internal fruit cells. They were not prone to compression from adjacent cells towards the surface and were consequently more distended than internal cells. At harvest, prior to coolstorage, no fungal mycelium or spores were observed associated with lenticel damage symptoms. Surface-sterilised samples of lenticel damaged tissue failed to yield a fungal pathogen. In coolstorage, however, these fruit developed slightly sunken dark brown patches with irregular margins, referred to as measles, about 10–50 mm diameter The fungi Colletotrichum acutatum and Phomopsis sp. were isolated from such tissue in greater quantities than adjacent green tissue. Imbibation had no effect on measles development, but fruit jostled in a plastic crate to simulate damage that occurs at harvest developed more severe measles than fruit that were not damaged. There was no evidence that lenticel damage lead to measles but both symptoms were worsened by jostling.