Physiology of Fruit Development: Maturation and Post-Harvest

Description

Fruit developed as a means of producing and distributing seeds. The development of products for human use was then under greater selection pressure from humans. Over the previous century, this kind of evolution has accelerated. In terms of evolution, the idea of fruit as a sweet, fleshy food is relatively recent. Cell wall, carbohydrate, organic acid, lipid, phospholipid, and volatile (aroma) chemical proportions shift significantly as the fruit matures, and within each of those groups, there are variations in the proportion of individual group members. The fruit goes through many processes as it ripens, becomes edible, and ultimately senesces. These modifications could take place either before or after the fruit is harvested. Tomatoes, bananas, and avocados are three examples of fruits that may be fully developed but still unripe at the time of harvest. Until further ripening processes have taken place, these fruits are inedible. Additional selection pressures have been applied to temperate fruit species throughout the 20th century to create cultivars that are well-suited to handling and storing after harvest. This has not been the case for most tropical fruits, which have undergone less selection for these traits and continue to pose difficult issues for postharvest researchers and breeders. Fruits thus make up a considerable portion of the global agricultural output, and some of them, like the apple and the pomegranate, have deep cultural and symbolic significance. Fruits undergo a process called ripening that makes them more delicious. Fruit often gets softer, sweeter, and less green as it ripens.