Biochemical changes, ripening fruit

Landahl, S., Meyer, M. D., and Terry, L. A. 2009. Spatial and temporal analysis of textural and biochemical changes of imported avocado cv. Hass during fruit ripening. J. Agric. Food Chem. 57 7039-7047. 

El-Zoghbi, M. (1994). Biochemical changes in some tropical fruits during ripening. Food Chemistry 49, 33-37. 

Miceli, A., Antonaci, C., Linsalata, V., and Leo, P. De (1995). Biochemical changes associated with ripening of kiwi fruits. Agricultura Medi-terranea 125, 121-127. 

These variations in behavior indicate that harvesting melons at different stages of maturity causes subsequent biochemical events involved in amino acid accumulation to follow markedly different pathways. Recent work shows that melon fhiit harvested up to ten days before commercial maturity exhibits climacteric behavior with respect to ethylene production showing that at least this aspect of ripening is not completely inhibited by premature separation from the plant(P). However, the amount of ethylene produced is dependent on maturity at harvest and fruit harvested five days prematurely generated only about half of the amount of ethylene produced by fruit harvested two days before maturity. Also the lag time required to initiate ethylene production after harvest depended on maturity and was longer for prematurely harvested fruit. Changes in the content of the phytohormone abscisic acid were also correlated with that of ethylene. However whether the different maturity related metabolic responses observed above result from the action of these or other plant hormones awaits further study. 

Fruits ripen in two major ways climacteric and non-climacteric. The former type involves both autocatalytic evolution of ethylene and a rise in respiration whereas the latter shows no increase in ethylene formation and downward drifts in respiration [14]. In both types, fruit ripening is characterized by many biochemical and physiological changes such as chlorophyll d radation, pigment accumulation, textural modification and the production of volatile aromatic compounds. 

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