Relation of Maturity to Some Fruit Characters of the West Indian Cherry

Abstract

An experiment was conducted on West Indian Cherries of the B-17 variety at the Isabela Agricultural Experiment Substation to study the relationships between ripeness and chemical composition of the fruit at various harvesting dates. Most of the trees bloomed practically at the same time, so that it was easy to replicate the harvesting dates: May 3, May 7, May 10, May 14, and May 17. The fruit characters studied in this experiment were: Percentage of ripe fruits, total solids, ascorbic acid, and fruit produced per tree. The major results of this experiment were as follows: 1. The percentage of ripe fruits increased as the season progressed. Eight percent of nonripe fruits were still found on the last harvesting date, May 17. 2. The total solids were much higher at the end of the season, indicating that the mature fruits had more total solids than the immature. 3. The ascorbic acid content was much lower at the end of the season, indicating that the percentage of this vitamin is reduced as the fruits mature. 4. The highly significant correlation coefficient between percentage of ripe fruits and total solids and ascorbic acid suggests that these characters are affected by ripeness.