Fruit production

The least hardy fruit producers showed marked reductions in fruit production and significant leaf losses. In addition up to 20% of the trees were killed outright by the frost. The susceptible populations were either killed outright (up to 82%) or failed to produce any fruit crops and were generally defoliated. 

Inglese, P., Basile, E, and Schirra, M., Cactus for fruit production, in Cacti Biology and Uses, Nobel, PS., Ed., University of California Press, Berkeley, 2002, 163. 

Organic fruit production is one of the most important and challenging areas of organic production for a variety of reasons. These include ... 

Important intrinsic quality criteria currently determining the market potential of new apple cultivars are related to the sensory quality such as fruit firmness (crispness) and the sugar and acidity contents. On the other hand, the nutritional composition (e.g. the vitamin or antioxidant contents) is currently not used as a criterion in the choice of cultivars, neither in conventional nor in organic fruit production. The difference in the content of such components between fruit species is in most cases more relevant than between cultivars of the same species (e.g. vitamin C content of oranges versus apples). 

In organic fruit production, in particular in more humid climates, a lower... 

Most dynamic factors that affect fruit quality are agronomic practices that can be changed by farmers over relatively short time spans. They are mainly related to fertility management and crop protection and other husbandry interventions and inputs such as pesticides, fertilisers, herbicides, thinning agents and so on. The permitted tools for these activities, however, differ greatly between conventional and organic fruit production. The consequences... 

These results clearly indicate that fruit growers should not lower fertility inputs below the level required for satisfactory tree performance and intrinsic fruit quality, and also content of polyphenols. Thus, balanced nutrition without over or under supply of nutrients should be targeted in organic fruit production. 

Owing to the prohibition of chemosynthetic pesticides under organic farming standards, there is a greatly reduced availability of intervention/treatment-based methods for disease and pest control in organic fruit production systems. The efficacy of the permitted biological control, extract or mineral element (e.g. S and Cu)-based crop protection products is also usually lower than of chemosynthetic pesticides. Permitted plant protection products show efficacies of between 60 and 80% while chemosynthetic fungicides and pesticides often have efficacy levels >95% (Tamm et al., 2004). 

In this chapter we have explained several system-inherent factors of organic fruit growing that can improve fruit quality. However, with the intensification of organic fruit production currently under way worldwide (e.g. more intensive nitrogen application on horticultural crops), there is a risk of quality decrease. Therefore, technical progress in organic farming should be closely and scientifically monitored for (side) effects on food quality, possibly in a holistic view that also includes environmental, social and human health criteria. 

Granatstein, D. and Kirby, E. (2006). The changing face of organic tree fruit productions , Proceedings of the First International Symposium on Organic Apple and Pearl in Wolfsville (CAN). Submitted to Acta Horticulturae in Feb. 2006, 8 pp. 

Gut, D. and Weibel, F.P. (2005). Integrated and organic weed control in pome and stone fruit , in Tromp J., Webster A.D. and Wertheim S J. Fundamentals of Temperate Zone Tree Fruit Production, Backhuys Publishers, Leiden, The Netherlands, 372-377. 

Tamm, L., Haseli, A., Fuchs, J.G., Weibel, F.P. and Wyss, E. (2004). Organic fruit production in humid climates of Europe Bottlenecks and new approaches in disease and pest control , Acta Horticulturae (ISHS), 638, 333-339. 

Weibel, F.P., Haseli A. and Schmid O. (2002). Organic fruit production in Europe (overview and farm economy) , The Compact Fruit Tree, 35(3), 77-82. 

ICMSF (2005), Fruits and fruits products , in Microorganisms in Foods 6 Microbial Ecology of Food Commodities, Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, New York. 

Jay M J, Loessner M J and Golden D A (2005), Vegetable and fruit products , in Modem Food Microbiology, Springer Science + Business Media, New York. 

Post-harvest strategies to reduce enteric bacteria contamination of vegetable, nut and fruit products... 

Lea AGH. 1992. Flavor, color and stability in fruit products the effect of polyphenols. In Hemingway RW and Leaks PE, editors. Plant Polyphenols. New York Plenum Press, pp. 827-847. 

USDA. 1991. Composition of Foods Fruits and Fruit Products—Raw, Processed, Prepared. US Dept Agr Handb 8-9, 283 pp. 

Carotenoids and their biosynthetic precursors can be used as biomarkers of fruit product quality and adulteration of one product with another, such as fraudulent mixing of apricot jams and spreads with pumpkin extracts (Kurz and others 2008), and for differentiation of various pumpkins and squashes (Azevedo-Meleiro and Rodriguez-Amaya 2007). 

Kurz C, Carle R and Schieber A. 2008. HPLC-DAD-MSn characterization of carotenoids from apricots and pumpkins for the evaluation of fruit product authenticity. Food Chem 110 522-530. 

Another use of pectin is when making a fruit flan or an open tart. These products are often coated with a pectin jelly based on a high methoxyl pectin. The pectin is dispersed and heated to dissolve it. As high methoxyl pectin requires an acid pH to set, just before use acid is added and the pectin mixture is poured over the flan. These fruit products are expected to be acid as part of the fruit flavour, so an acid gel is acceptable. 

Signs Plants infected with citrus canker have characteristic lesions on leaves, stems, and fruit with raised, brown water-soaked margins usually with a yellow hallow effect around the lesion. Incubation is typically 14-60 days. Older lesions may fall out, creating a shot-hole effect. Fruit production declines and then stops. The disease ultimately kills the tree. 

The major adulteration problem in fruit products is addition of sugar. The simplest method of extending a fruit juice is to add inexpensive sugar and dilute with water to rebalance sweetness. Since most juices are extracted from C4 plants (813C 15%o), and adulterating sugars from corn syrup or cane sugar are from C3... 

Elderberry (Sambucus nigra) is cultivated on small scale in Europe. The fruits have a high concentration of red and purple anthocyanins and a relatively low concentration of sugars, organic acids and aroma compounds, which make this juice attractive as a natural colour ingredient in other red fruit products [126-129]. The fresh green odour of elderberry juice is associated with volatile compounds with typical green notes such as 1-hexanol, 1-octanol, (Z)-3-hexen-l-ol, ( )-2-hexen-l-ol, hexanal and ( )-2-hexenal, whereas the floral aroma is mainly due to the presence of hotrienol and nonanal [127-130]. 

A complete understanding of the flavour chemistry and biochemistry of volatile components of fruits and vegetables is important in order to improve the flavour quality of fresh and processed produce that complies with the consumer needs for better quality vegetable and fruit products. 

---