Abstract
Cultural practices can affect the quality of pineapple fruits and its variation. The objectives of this study were to investigate (a) effects of weight class and type of planting material on fruit quality, heterogeneity in quality and proportion and yield of fruits meeting European export standards, and (b) the improvement in quality, proportion and yield of fruits meeting export standards when flowering was induced at optimum time. Experiments were conducted in Benin with cvs Sugarloaf (a Perola type) and Smooth Cayenne. In cv. Sugarloaf, experimental factors were weight class of planting material (light, mixed, heavy) and time of flowering induction (farmers', optimum) (Experiment 1). In cv. Smooth Cayenne an additional experimental factor was the type of planting material (hapas, ground suckers, a mixture of the two) (Experiment 2). Fruits from heavy planting material had higher infructescence and fruit weights, longer infructescences, shorter crowns, and smaller crown: infructescence length than fruits from light planting material. The type of planting material in Experiment 2 did not significantly affect fruit quality except crown length: fruits from hapas had shorter crowns than those from ground suckers. Crops from heavy planting material had a higher proportion and yield of fruits meeting export standards than those from other weight classes in Experiment 1 only; also the type of planting material in Experiment 2 did not affect these variates. Heterogeneity in fruit quality was usually not reduced by selecting only light or heavy planting material instead of mixing weights; incidentally the coefficient of variation was significantly reduced in fruits from heavy slips only. Heterogeneity was also not reduced by not mixing hapas and ground suckers. Flowering induction at optimum time increased the proportion and yield of fruits meeting export standards in fruits from light and mixed slip weights and in those from the mixture of heavy hapas plus ground suckers.
Highlights
Several recent reports stress the low export volume of fruits from developing countries to international markets (Subramanian and Matthijs, 2007; Van Melle and Buschmann, 2013)
The weight class of planting material had no significant effect on the coefficient of variation (CV) in vigor of the individual plants at the induction time (Table 2), but plants from the mixed weight class had a higher range 5–95% in vigor than plants from light planting material in Experiment 1, whereas plants from the heavy planting material class did not differ significantly from any of these classes in this variate (Figure 3)
When hapas or ground suckers were used as planting material, the type of planting material did not affect the average fruit quality attributes except the crown length which was shorter in fruits from hapas than in those from ground suckers
Summary
Several recent reports stress the low export volume of fruits from developing countries to international markets (Subramanian and Matthijs, 2007; Van Melle and Buschmann, 2013) This low export volume is due to the poor average quality of the fruits as well as the low uniformity in fruit quality (Joosten, 2007; Temu and Marwa, 2007; Van Melle et al, 2013). This is the case for pineapple [Ananas comosus (L.) Merrill] from Benin (Fassinou Hotegni et al, 2014a), where pineapple yield is high but the quality is poor and heterogeneous. Since pineapple quality can hardly be improved after harvesting fruits, this study concentrates on improving cultural practices at early and later crop stages.
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