Pruning is crucial to balance productivity and fruit quality in blueberry orchards. Slight, conventional and severe pruning treatments were applied on 4and 5-year old bluberry plants cultivar ‘Brigitta’ to evaluate their effect on yield, leaf area, gas exchange and fruit load as driver of fruit quality traits. Yield and berries per plant decreased with increasing pruning severity, whereas canop...

Chloride and sodium are the main ions contributing to soil salinity in many regions but chloride is an essential element necessary for plant growth and development. It also controls the growth of some pathogens in plants. In this experiment, the effect of the chloride ion in nutrient solution on yield and fruit quality of two strawberry cultivars: ‘Selva’ and ‘Camarosa’ grown in hydroponic cult...

Chilling injury (CI) symptoms in avocado (Persea americana Mill.) fruit, expressed as mesocarp discoloration, were found to be associated with embryo growth and ethylene production during cold storage. In cvs Ettinger and Arad most mesocarp discoloration was located close to the base of the seed and was induced by ethylene treatment in seeded avocado fruit. However, ethylene did not increase me...

The surface area of a mature green cucumber (Cucumis sativa L.) fruit is comparable with that of a functional leaf, but the characteristics of fruit photosynthesis and its contribution to growth are poorly understood. Here, the photosynthetic properties of two genotypes of cucumber (dark green and light green fruits) were studied using a combination of electron microscopy, immunogold enzyme loc...

In this study the effects of plant growth regulators including; GA3 (0 and 50 mg/l) and ethephon (0 and 500 mg/l) were studied on the quality properties of two grape cultivars (Perlette and Yaghuti). At the harvest time, some physicochemical characteristics such as fruit cluster weight, fruit diameter, length, volume and L/D ratio, flesh firmness, fresh weight, TA, pH, TSS and fruit color were ...

Tomato fruit growth and composition depend on both genotype and environment. This paper aims at studying how fruit phenotypic responses to changes in carbon availability can be influenced by genotype, and at identifying genotype-dependent and -independent changes in gene expression underlying variations in fruit growth and composition. We grew a parental line (Solanum lycopersicum) and an intro...

Background & Aim: Strawberry (Fragaria vesca L.) is a plant belonging to the Rosaceae family with medicinal properties, including antioxidant activity. The present study aimed at investigating the antioxidant properties of strawberry. Experimental method: To examine the antioxidant effect, fruit extracts at two phonological stages of growth (ripe and unripe strawberry) were prepared. ...

Zinc (Zn) deficiency is widespread throughout the world causing economic losses on a number of crops. Despite the fact that much information was generated during the last 20 years on Zn soil chemistry and its inorganic phase equilibrium, the mechanism controlling the amount of free Zn+2 present in the soil solution is not yet completely understood. This information is critical for the developme...