Factors affecting ethylene and carbon dioxide concentrations during ripening: Incidence on final dry matter, total soluble solids content and acidity of mango fruit

Thibault Nordey,Mathieu Léchaudel,Michel Génard,Jacques Joas

doi:10.1016/j.jplph.2016.03.008

Abstract

Ripening of climacteric fruits is associated with pronounced changes in fruit gas composition caused by a concomitant rise in respiration and ethylene production. There is a discrepancy in the literature since some authors reported that changes in fruit gas compositions differ in attached and detached fruits. This study presents for the first time an overview of pre- and post-harvest factors that lead to variations in the climacteric respiration and ethylene production, and attempts to determine their impacts on fruit composition, i.e., dry matter, total soluble solids content and acidity.The impact of growing conditions such as the fruit position in the canopy and the fruit carbon supply; fruit detachment from the tree, including the maturity stage at harvest; and storage conditions after harvest, i.e., relative humidity and temperature were considered as well as changes in fruit skin resistance to gas diffusion during fruit growth and storage.Results showed that fruit gas composition vary with all pre and post-harvest factors studied. Although all mangoes underwent a respiratory climacteric and an autocatalytic ethylene production, whatever pre and post-harvest factors studied, large differences in ethylene production, climacteric respiration and fruit quality were measured. Results suggested that the ripening capacity is not related to the fruit ability to produce great amount of ethylene. In agreement with precedent studies, this work provided several lines of evidence that gas composition of fruit is related to its water balance. Our measurements indicated that skin resistance to gas diffusion increased after the harvest and during storage. It was so suggested that the faster ripening of detached fruit may be explained in part by changes in fruit water balance and skin resistance to gas diffusion caused by fruit detachment.

Highlights

Numerous physiological processes involved in fruit development depend on temperature
Temperature has a major impact on fruit physiology through its effect on fruit water losses by transpiration [9,10] due to its influence on the pressure vapour deficit (VPD) that drives the transpiration rate [11]
Hue angle (Hu) and chroma (C) values of the peel of the sunny and shaded sides were found to be significantly different at all maturity stages except for the earliest one (Table 1)

Summary

Introduction

Numerous physiological processes involved in fruit development depend on temperature. Temperature has a major impact on fruit physiology through its effect on fruit water losses by transpiration [9,10] due to its influence on the pressure vapour deficit (VPD) that drives the transpiration rate [11]. The temperature of a fruit results from its heat budget, which is defined by energy exchanges caused by radiation, evaporation, convection, conduction and metabolic activity [19]. Different factors have an impact on the components of the fruit heat budget and can be broken down into environmental factors (solar radiation, air moisture, air temperature and wind), fruit thermal properties (heat capacity, density and conductivity), and fruit physical properties (skin permeability to water diffusion, peel reflectance and fruit volume) [20]

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