Fruit quality of crystal honey pomelo with different tree ages

ObjectiveIn order to provide a scientific theory basis of crystal honey pomelo high-quality production in Yunnan,fruit qualities and sensory flavor of crystal honey pomelo with tree ages in Ruili,Yunnan were compared.MethodThe test materials were crystal honey pomelo in tree ages of 3,5,7,10,14 and 21 years from Ruili,Yunnan. Their fruit appearance qualities such as single fruit mass,fruit shape index,peel thickness and peel color,as well as their intrinsic qualities such as total soluble solid(TSS)content,titratable acid(TA)content,TSS/TA ratio and vitamin c(Vc)content were determined respectively. In addition,the sensory flavor of the fruits was identified,and the changes of fruit quality in the main production areas of crystal honey pomelo with the age of the tree were analyzed.ResultThe fruit shape in-dex had no great difference with the increase of tree age. Single fruit weight,fruit peel thickness and percentage of peel weight in single fruit decreased with increasing tree ages. But there was no significant difference in single fruit weight of crystal honey pomelo(P>0.05),and the fruit peel thickness and percentage of peel weight in single fruit significantly de-creased(P<0.05,the same below)when tree ages were less than 14 years. When the age of the tree was 21 years(entering the old age bearing period),the single fruit weight decreased significantly,fruit peel aberration index L*,a*and b*in-creased with increasing of tree ages. As tree ages varied greatly,the difference in peel color also enhanced. TSS content, TSS/TA ratio and vitamin C content increased first and then decreased with increasing of tree ages. These values(11.97%, 18.91 and 53.70 mg/100 mL respectively)peaked at tree age of 14 years. TA content showed a up-down trend,reaching the minimum(0.63%)when it was 14 years old,which was significantly different from other tree ages. The flavor and overall satisfaction also showed a up-down trend with the increase of tree age,and reached the highest score(2.56 points) when the tree age was 14 years. Correlation analysis indicated that the interior qualities were correlated with the sensory flavor. The effects of TSS,TA and TSS/TA ratio on the sensory flavor was large and the effect of vitamin C was relatively small.ConclusionThe exterior qualities of crystal honey pomelo fruit are stable and the interior qualities and the sensory flavor of fruit are the best when the tree age is 14 years.