Epicuticular wax and lenticel changes during development of mango fruit cv. Dashehari.
Khader S. E. S. A., Tandon D. K., Kalra S. K.
Author Affiliation: Central Institute of Horticulture for Northern Plains, B-217, Indira Nagar, Lucknow 226?016, India.
Indian Journal of Horticulture 49 : 165-168
Abstract : Fruits were collected from 15-year-old mango cv. Dashehari trees at 10-day intervals from fruit set on 1 Apr. 1990 to fruit harvest on 20 June 1990. The chloroform dip method was used for epicuticular wax extraction and total wax/fruit was determined gravimetrically. Lenticel counts were taken from the shoulder, middle and apical regions of the fruits starting 40 days after fruit set. The amount of epicuticular wax/fruit increased steadily from fruit set to harvest. Epicuticular wax/unit area increased initially, decreased at 30 days after fruit set and then increased steadily up to fruit harvest. Lenticels were concentrated in the apical region of the fruit, where there were twice as many as in the middle region and 3 times as many as in the shoulder region. The number of lenticels/unit area remained fairly constant. The total number of lenticels/fruit increased form 2615 to 3167 between 40 and 60 days after fruit set, after which time it did not change significantly.