Abstract
An intact skin is essential in high-quality apples. Ongoing deposition of cuticular material during fruit development may decrease microcracking. Our objective was to establish a system for quantifying cutin and wax deposition in developing apple fruit. Oleic acid (13C and 14C labelled) and palmitic acid (14C labelled) were fed to developing apples and the amounts incorporated in the cutin and wax fractions were quantified. The incorporation of 14C oleic acid (C18) was significantly higher than that of 14C palmitic acid (C16) and the incorporation in the cutin fraction exceeded that in the wax fraction. The amount of precursor incorporated in the cutin increased asymptotically with time, but the amount in the wax fraction remained about constant. Increasing the concentration of the precursor applied generally increased incorporation. Incorporation in the cutin fraction was high during early development (43 days after full bloom) and decreased towards maturity. Incorporation was higher from a dilute donor solution (infinite dose feeding) than from a donor solution subjected to drying (finite dose feeding) or from perfusion of the precursor by injection. Feeding the skin of a developing apple with oleic acid resulted in significant incorporation in the cutin fraction under both laboratory and field conditions.
Highlights
Maintaining an intact fruit skin is essential in the production of high-quality fruit of all species
Incorporation in the cuticular membrane (CM) and the cutin fractions was significantly higher following application of 14C oleic acid (C18) as compared to 14C palmitic acid (C16) (Figure 2)
The results demonstrate that feeding the skin of developing apple fruit with oleic acid results in the incorporation of this precursor into the cutin fraction
Summary
Maintaining an intact fruit skin is essential in the production of high-quality fruit of all species. Skin defects impair the cuticle’s barrier properties [1]. They allow uncontrolled passage of substances including water into and out of the fruit, leading to excessive water loss (in the dry) and shrivel or to water uptake (in the wet), cracking and russeting [2,3,4,5,6,7]. Skin defects compromise both the pre- and postharvest performance of many fruit crop species. A fruit with multiple or severe skin defects is rejected by consumers, so excluded from the marketing chain and so of value only for processing. Skin defects cause serious economic loss to growers
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