Growth, maturation and ripening of breadfruit, Artocarpus altilis (Park.) Fosb.

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Abstract

Fruit growth of a seedless, `white flesh' cultivar of breadfruit [Artocarpus altilis (Park.) Fosb.] was single sigmoidal as measured by diameter, but double sigmoidal when assessed as dry or fresh weight. The first phase of growth was characterised by size generation while the second phase involved major increase in dry weight, mainly in the form of starch accumulation. The fruit required 13–21 weeks to reach full size from the time when the female inflorescence was first detectable in the terminal leaf sheath though sensory tests of cooked fruit revealed that only fruit 15–19 weeks old was acceptable. This age range coincided with maturity indices such as the appearance of white latex on the fruit skin and flattening of the fruit segments and the spur at the centre of these. Skin colour could not be reliably used as a maturity index. Mature fruit produced a monophasic respiratory climacteric, with CO2 production reaching 200 ml kg−1 h−1 at 25–30°C. In contrast, peak ethylene production was low (1.5 μl kg−1 h−1 ). The respiratory climacteric of fruit harvested at the earliest maturity (13-to-15-week-old fruit) tended to be higher and later than that of fully mature (19-to-21-week-old) fruit.

Introduction

Breadfruit, Artocarpus altilis (Park.) Fosb., a native of the Indo-Malayan Archipelago and New Guinea, is commonly cultivated throughout the islands of the Caribbean. Commercially, it is the most important of the three domesticated species of Artocarpus, a genus of over 50 species (Coenen and Barrau, 1961; Barrau, 1976). In the Pacific, there are hundreds of breadfruit cultivars which are grown for food (Ragone, 1989) but only a few of these were introduced to the Caribbean by Bligh in his famous voyage (Powell, 1977) and no more than four or five cultivars are commonly recognised in the Caribbean today (Leakey, 1977; Andrews, 1991).

Breadfruit is consumed unripe and cooked as a starchy staple, equalling or surpassing other tropical crops like sweet potato and cassava in protein and carbohydrate content (Graham and De Bravo, 1981). The fruit has a high post-harvest respiration rate (Biale and Barcus, 1970) but information about its development and maturation is limited. An understanding of the process of fruit development and the identification of suitable maturity indices are important prerequisites for rational development and exploitation of this crop. This study was undertaken to (a) characterise fruit growth patterns and (b) identify possible maturity indices, especially in view of the breadfruit's growing importance as an export crop of the Caribbean (Andrews, 1991).

Section snippets

Plant material

Fruit development was studied during November 1989 through May 1990 using nine breadfruit [Artocarpus altilis (Park.) Fosb.] trees of unknown age, in backyard orchards in St. Michael and St. James, Barbados. The fruit were of the seedless, `white flesh' (uncooked flesh colour) cultivar, most common in Barbados and which has been identified on the basis of photographs and herbarium specimens as approximating the Pacific cultivar `Rare' (D. Ragone, pers. comm.). Young fruit were located by

Fruit growth

Polar and equatorial diameters of breadfruit were measured over a 21-week time course. Fruit growth measured in this way displayed a single sigmoidal curve (Fig. 1(A)) and reached a maximum at a fruit age of 14–15 weeks. However, when weight was monitored (Fig. 1(B)), both fresh and dry weight lagged behind diameter increase and both displayed double sigmoidal growth kinetics. The first growth phase took ca. 9 weeks (Fig. 1(B)), followed by an intervening `resting' phase of about 2 weeks and

Discussion

When the measurement of growth using linear parameters is compared with that assessed by fresh and dry weight, there is an obvious disparity between the growth kinetics (Fig. 1). Whether linear measurements were taken in situ or from fruit harvested for weight determinations, the single sigmoidal growth curve resulted. Thus, the possibility that the differences in growth curves could be attributed to differences in fruit samples was discounted. Furthermore, double sigmoidal growth was again

Acknowledgements

This research was supported under Grant No. 534-0936-G-00-9117, Program in Science and Technology Cooperation, Office of the Science Advisor, U.S. Agency for International Development.

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