In China, loquat (Eriobotrya japonica Lindl.) is mainly grown in the south of Yangtze River including provinces such as Fujian, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Sichuan. The area in the south of Qinling ...Mountains, Shanxi province, is the north marginal zone of loquat growth. Ankang, where the present study was carried out, is located in the south of Qinling Mountains with a cool sub-tropical climate. The average annual temperature is 15.5°C. A study was conducted to determine the effect of flower and fruit thinning, fruit bagging, and twig and bud thinning on the growth and quality of ‘Changqi Zaosheng’ loquat. The trees 5 to 8 years old were selected as test materials. Flower thinning effectively reduced nutrition consumption and increased fruit-set by 49.1%. Compared to the unthinned check, retaining 3 to 5 young fruits per panicle significantly increased single fruit weight and rate of marketable fruit and reduced the number of rusty and cracking fruit. It was also demonstrated that thinning twigs and buds can increase single fruit weight and the yield to some degree. Bagging after fruit thinning completely prevented sunburn and reduced rusty fruit from 47.2 to 0.9%, and commodity fruits increased from 31.3 to 95.2%. Bagging also increased fruit flesh recovery and total acids but soluble solids content was slightly lower.
The effect of bagging of mango (
Mangifera indica) fruit was evaluated in order to improve fruit quality of late maturing cultivars. In 1993/1994, fruit of the `Keitt' cultivar were bagged with white ...paper bags at approximately 100 days before harvest on two separate orchards in the same growing district. In 1994/1995, `Keitt' fruit from another growing district were bagged at 131, 105, 82, 56 and 31 days before harvest. Fruit were harvested when mature and the fruit quality assessed following ripening at 22°C. Anthracnose and stem end rot (SER), caused by
Colletotrichum and
Dothoriella spp., respectively, were reduced by bagging in both years. In 1994/1995, SER severity continued to decline with increasing bagging duration, but there was no further consistent reduction in anthracnose severity with bagging durations longer than 56 days. All bagging treatments increased the percentage of the skin area with yellow colour at the eating soft stage. The percentage of the skin with red colour, and its intensity, decreased with increasing duration of bagging. Fruit calcium concentrations were reduced by bagging for 56 days or less in the 1994/1995 trial, but not by longer bagging times (82–131 days). Percent dry matter (% DM) was higher, and days to ripen shorter, in bagged fruit from one orchard during 1993/1994. Fruit mass, flesh colour, total soluble solids, acidity and eating quality were generally not affected by bagging. These results indicate that bagging can improve fruit quality through reduction in disease, and this benefit outweighs the negative effects of bagging on skin colour in the `Keitt' cultivar.
Anthracnose disease caused by Colletotrichum gloeosporioides in Jingkwang mango grown in Taiwan was significantly reduced by the integration of fruit bagging with either B. subtilis strain LB5 or ...fungicides. The combined treatments were most effective in reducing early infection during the 2004 season, leading to 56.4 and 58.3% reduction, respectively, while in 2003 reduction accounted for 51 and 52.3%, respectively. Post-harvest application of B. subtilis strain LB5 cell suspensions on fruits already treated by bagging, bagging+LB5 and bagging+fungicides in the field reduced anthracnose incidence significantly at all tested concentrations. These results indicate that biocontrol efficacy of B. subtilis LB5 may be due to the prevention of early fruit infection, thereby reducing significantly anthracnose incidence in ripening fruits to much lower levels than those obtained by using a conventional single post-harvest treatment.
Effects of different paper bags on fruit quality of loquat Liu Youjie; Xu Jiahui(Fujian Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Fuzhou (China), Institute of Fruit Science)
Jiangxi nongye daxue xuebao = Acta agriculturae universitatis jiangxiensis,
(Jun 2004), Volume:
26, Issue:
3
Journal Article
