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Respiration (i.e., carbon dioxide production and oxygen consumption) increases as ripening is initiated in a group of harvested fruit called climacteric. This group includes many horticulturally important fruit crops, such as apples, avocados, bananas, melons, peaches, pears, and tomatoes. Other fruit, which includes cherries, citrus, and strawberries, do not exhibit an increase in respiration as they ripen and are called nonclimacteric. Measurements of carbon dioxide production by ripening apples, melons, and tomatoes revealed a well-defined climacteric, but only in harvested fruit. The respiratory climacteric was greatly diminished or absent from these fruit when they ripened while attached to the plant. Fixation of respired carbon dioxide through photosynthesis or into organic acids was insufficient to account for the diminished amount of carbon dioxide evolved from ripening attached climacteric fruit. Unlike the respiratory climacteric, an increase in ethylene production occurred in both attached and harvested climacteric fruit. Ethylene stimulates respiration in most plant tissues. The rapid rise in respiration as soon as attached ripening climacteric fruit were harvested or abscised suggests that an inhibitor of ethylene-stimulated respiration may be translocated from the plant and prevent the climacteric rise in respiration in attached ripening fruit.
Tomato fruit undergo an orderly series of physiological and morphological changes as they progress from mature-green (MG) to red-ripe. Fruit are commercially harvested at the MG stage, a stage which often encompasses fruit of varying degrees of maturity. The ability to predict the time required for MG fruit to ripen would reduce variability in experiments and could be commercially used to pack fruit that would ripen uniformly. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) imaging can nondestructively measure internal changes associated with plant growth and developmental. In this study, NMR images were taken of freshly harvested tomato fruit (Lycopersicum esculentum cv. Castlemart) at different stages of maturity and ripeness. Measurements were also made of the stage of ripeness, rate of respiration and ethylene production, lycopene and chlorophyll content, density of the pericarp wall, and condition of locular tissue. NMR images showed substantial charges in the pericarp wall and locular tissue during maturation and ripening of tomato fruit. However, it was difficult to objectively evaluate these visual changes with other ripening parameters. For example, increased lightness and graininess of the pericarp wall image was associated with a decrease in wall density; while lightening of the locular image was associated with tissue liquefacation. Use of NMR imaging in studies of tomato fruit ripening will be discussed.
Crops indigenous to the tropics and subtropics and some temperate crops suffer physiological injury when exposed to temperatures <12°C. Heat shock has induced chilling tolerance in a number of sensitive species (e.g., corn, cucumber, and tomato), but not in okra. To study this anomaly, we investigated the chilling sensitivity and heat shock response of a variety of Malvaceous species (i.e., cotton, hibiscus, kenaf, and okra). Seedlings with 8- to 12-mm long radicles were exposed to heat shock temperatures of 40 to 45°C for 2 to 12 minutes. Heat shocks were applied by two methods, floating the seeds in petri dishes on heated water and immersing the seeds in the heated water. The seedlings were held at 20°C for 2 hours after the heat treatments and then chilled at 2.5°C for 3 days. After chilling, seedlings were placed at 25°C for 3 additional days. The growth at 25°C was used as an assessment of chilling injury. Although there was a great deal of variability among the seedlings, a significant number of the okra and kenaf seedlings were more tolerant to chilling after heat shock: (i.e., more growth subsequent to chilling) compared to nonheat-shocked controls. More chilling tolerance was induced by the floating method than the immersion method. The response of cotton seedlings to heat-shock was variable, and the seedlings appeared damaged by even slight heat treatments (i.e., 4 minutes at 40°C). The variability in the capacity of heat-shocks to induce chilling tolerance in seedlings of Malvaceous species will be discussed.
Seeds in fruit of bell pepper (Capsicum annuum `California Wonder') plants grown in nutrient solutions deficient in potassium (<3 mmol·L-1) showed a higher incidence of sprouting (i.e., vivipary) than seeds in fruit from plants grown at adequate potassium levels (6 mmol·L-1). Tissue analysis showed a progressive drop in the leaf content of potassium with increasing plant maturation for all levels of potassium nutrition. However, potassium in fruit and seeds increased at later stages of maturity. ABA was extracted, isolated and identified from bell pepper seeds obtained from fruit grown under the potassium treatments (0.0, 0.6, 1.5, 3.0, and 6.0 mmol·L-1) at five fruit maturity stages (mature-green to overripe). At early fruit maturity stages, there were no significant differences in seed ABA content in the fruit from the different potassium treatments. However, differences in ABA content and vivipary among the potassium treatments became highly significant as the fruit matured. The concentration of ABA in seeds of potassium-deficient treatments was ≈14% of the control (0.4 versus 2.8 μg·g-1 dry mass). High concentrations of ABA in bell pepper seeds were associated with low incidence of vivipary and high potassium content in the leaves, fruit and nutrient solution.
Abstract
Tomato fruit (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill., cv. Castlemart) either harvested hot (e.g., 32°C) and chilled for 7 days at 7°, or harvested cool (e.g., 19°) and held in the laboratory at 37° for 7 hr before chilling at 2.5° for 4 days ripened slower (a symptom of chilling injury) than fruit that were either harvested cool (19°) or held at 12.5° for 7 hr before chilling.
Exposure to acetaldehyde (M) vapors that produced tissue levels of 0.02% AA (w/w) stimulated ripening of `Hayward' kiwifruit (Actinidia deliciosa L.) much more effectively than exposure to ethanol vapors that produced tissue levels of 0.18% ethanol. Tissue levels of 0.02% and 0.18% ethanol stimulated ripening, while the ripening rate of tissue with 0.04% was similar to the controls. Ethylene and CO production from M-treated tissues were, respectively, 23 times and 60% higher than from control tissues. AA induced a rapid softening that was localized in the core tissue and rendered the fruit unmarketable for 7 days after treatment.
Symptoms of chilling injury were reduced by intermittently warming cucumber fruit (Cucumis sativus L. cv. Poinsett 76) from 2.5 to 12.5C for 18 hr every 3 days. Fruit continuously held at 2.5C for 13 days developed severe pitting and decay after 6 days at 20C, while fruit continuously held at 12.5C or intermittently warmed showed no pitting or decay during subsequent holding at 20C. The increased rate of C2H4 production during the first warming period, from 12 nl·(kg·hr)-1 at 2.5C to 201 nl·(kg·hr)-1 at 12.5C, was significantly greater than that during the second or third warming periods, i.e., 53 to 98 and 53 to 55 nl C2H4/(kg·hr), respectively. Respiration increased 3-fold during the initial warming period, but only 2-fold during subsequent warming periods. Leakage of cellular ions from excised disks of mesocarp tissue was around 6% and 10% of the total ion content of the tissue for control and intermittently warmed fruit, respectively, but increased to 17% for fruit that were continuously held at 2.5C for 10 days. After 320 hr (three cycles) of chilling and warming, chilled fruit showed significantIy lower ethylene-forming enzyme activity than the control or intermittently warmed fruit. Fruit held at 12.5C contained 0.09 to 0.34 nmol·g-1 of ACC. ACC levels were 6.23 nmol·g-1 in fruit exposed to 2.5C for 320 hr. In contrast, intermittently warmed fruit only showed 30% and 27% increases in ACC content during the first and second warming periods, respectively. Periodic warming appears to allow chilled fruit to acclimate to subsequent periods of chilling. Chemical names used: 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylic acid (ACC).
Abstract
The degree to which white light stimulated ethylene production in germinating seeds of cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.) was influenced by the length of time the seed had been germinated in the dark before being exposed to light. Maximum stimulation occurred when 24 hour old dark-grown seedlings were exposed to 40 μE m−2 sec−1 light for 24 hours. Ethylene production increased with the duration and intensity of light exposure at all seedling ages. Neither the light or dark rates of ethylene, or carbon dioxide production, nor their ratios, were highly correlated with the sexual phenotype of the 9 cultivars examined.
Russet spotting (RS) is an important postharvest disorder in Iceberg lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.). Previous studies showed that RS is induced by exposure to ∼5 ppm (ul/l) ethylene at ∼5C for 3 days and is characterized by the appearance of 1 to 2 mm diam. oval, brown sunken spots along the midrib. Increases in phenylalanine ammonia-lyase (PAL) activity and phenolic content are highly correlated with RS development. Ethylene-induced PAL activity is much less at higher (12C) or lower (0C) temperatures. In this study isolated whole leaves were exposed to a log series of ethylene concentrations from 0.1 to 10 ppm at temperatures from 0.0C to 20C for up to 8 days. Tissue was transferred among these various treatments to investigate the kinetics of PAL induction, activity and deactivation, phenolic accumulation, and RS development. A subjective evaluation was then made of RS development using a 1 to 9 scoring system in which 1 was no RS, and then PAL activity and phenolic content were measured. Preliminary results indicate that ethylene-induced PAL activity was decreased more rapidly upon transfer to temperatures above 10C than to 0.0C. Accumulation of phenolic compounds and development of RS paralleled each other, and were positively related to PAL activity. Practical implications of these results will be discussed.
Experiments were conducted to study the effect of temperature on the ethylene inducibility of phenylalanine ammonia lyase (PAL, EC 4.3.1.5) activity and the development of russet spotting (RS) in Iceberg lettuce (Lactucu sutiva L.). Tissue exposed to ethylene and held at 15 or 20C showed earlier hut lower peaks in PAL activity than tissue held at 5C. Accumulation of total soluble phenolic compounds, and the development of RS paralleled increases in PAL activity after a short lag period. Lettuce tissue transferred from 5 to 15C after 1 to 3 days showed later hut higher peaks in PAL activity than tissue continuously held at 15C. Transferring ethylene-exposed tissue to 0C before RS symptoms developed greatly limited further rise in PAL activity and RS development. Discontinuing ethylene exposure after 4 days resulted in a rapid decrease in PAL activity. Lettuce tissue exposed to ethylene for 4 days and then transferred from 5 to 0C after the development of moderate RS symptoms showed no difference in RS after 8 days compared to tissue stored continuously at 5C.