Vol. 71 No: 4

Title:
Maturation of Kiwifruit Grown at Different Temperatures in Controlled Environments

Authors:
NICKY G. SEAGER, I.J. WARRINGTON and E.W. HEWETT

pp: 639-652

Abstract:
Container-grown kiwifruit (Actinidia deliciosa (A. Chev) C. F. Liang et A. R. Ferguson var. deliciosa) vines were placed in controlled environments to study the effect of minimum temperature, mean temperature, magnitude of the difference between maximum and minimum temperature and a temperature perturbation on fruit maturation. Flesh firmness progressively decreased in each experiment regardless of temperature, with a tendency for the greatest decrease in firmness to occur in treatments with coolest mean temperatures. Increases in soluble solids concentration (SSC) and in total sugar concentration, along with concomitant decreases in starch concentration, occurred at increasing rates as mean temperature decreased. However, fruit had to reach a critical developmental stage, assessed as a minimum SSC, before it was able to respond to cool temperatures. A relationship between rate of change in SSC and mean temperature was derived from the controlled temperature regimes. Results obtained from these controlled environment studies provide a quantitative basis for the year-to-year and site-to-site differences that occur in the field where cool conditions have been observed to increase rates of fruit maturation.

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