Incidence and type of cracking in sweet cherry (Prunus avium L.) are affected by genotype and season

2009 ◽  
Vol 60 (10) ◽  
pp. 1002 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. F. Measham ◽  
S. A. Bound ◽  
A. J. Gracie ◽  
S. J. Wilson

Rain induced fruit cracking in sweet cherries takes 3 distinct forms: stem end cuticular fractures, calyx end cuticular fractures, and large cracks usually deep into the pulp on the cheek of the fruit. A 4-year study of sweet cherry varieties from a commercial orchard in Tasmania, Australia, was conducted to investigate the incidence of crack type and its relative likelihood, as influenced by both genotype and season. Although all 3 crack types developed in the 3-week period before commercial harvest, the extent of cracking was strongly controlled by season. While initial development of cracks coincided with rainfall, no relationship between amount of rain and incidence of cracking was found for crack type. A significant relationship was found between the tangential stress experienced by fruit skin from fruit at harvest maturity and the incidence of cracking recorded in the orchard. No other fruit property (pulp osmotic potential, fruit diameter, weight) explained the differences in incidence of cracking in the field between seasons or varieties. The results suggest that management of cracking needs to consider both varietal and seasonal factors. The development of turgor in maturing fruit also needs further investigation.

2016 ◽  
Vol 141 (6) ◽  
pp. 653-660 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas Winkler ◽  
Stefanie Peschel ◽  
Kathleen Kohrs ◽  
Moritz Knoche

Rain cracking of sweet cherry (Prunus avium L.) fruit is commonly thought to result from excessive net water uptake. This excess increases flesh turgor, which then strains and eventually ruptures the skin at the weakest point. This idea—the critical turgor hypothesis—assumes the fruit comprises a semifluid flesh, held under pressure by a taut skin. The objectives of this study were to test the validity of this popular hypothesis. We investigated the effects of 1) the different pathways of water uptake and 2) the fruit’s water balance on cracking. Incubating fruit of 19 cultivars in water resulted in rapid fruit cracking. The time to 50% cracking (T50) averaged 7.5 ± 1.3 hours with considerable variability between cultivars (T50 range from 1.5 to 18.6 hours). The amount of water taken up at 50% cracking (WU50) averaged 96.5 ± 17.6 mg (WU50 range from 17.7 to 331.5 mg). There was no correlation between either the T50 or the WU50, and the rate of water uptake. Also, there was no correlation between the values of T50 (r = 0.58) and only a weak correlation between the values of WU50 (r = 0.80*) determined in different years. Comparing the value of WU50 under incubation vs. under perfusion revealed a 3.9- to 38-fold higher WU50 under perfusion (397.6 to 1840 mg) than under incubation (48.8 to 102.6 mg). This marked dissimilarity remained, regardless of pretreatments with isotonic polyethylene glycol (PEG) 6000 to induce microcracking or by manipulation of skin wetness during perfusion. Sealing the pedicel/fruit junction markedly decreased the rate of water uptake under incubation. It had no effect on the T50, and it markedly decreased the WU50. Similarly, manually induced skin defects greatly increased the rate of water uptake but, with few exceptions, had no effect on the T50, whereas, the WU50 had increased. The location on the fruit surface of the resulting cracks was not related to the region of the skin in which the manual defect was induced. Allowing the fruit to transpire increased both, the T50 and the WU50. Interestingly, the amount of water lost by transpiration exceeded the amount that was subsequently required to cause cracking up to 5-fold. Incubating fruit with their stylar ends immersed in water, whereas their remaining surfaces were in air of 0%, 28%, 75%, or 100% relative humidity (RH) resulted in net losses of water of up to 5.9 ± 0.7 mg·h−1, nevertheless their stylar ends still cracked. All our results indicate rain cracking in sweet cherries is a localized phenomenon that is not related to the net fruit water balance (the critical turgor hypothesis) but is the result of more local exposure of the fruit skin to liquid-phase water (the zipper hypothesis).


2015 ◽  
Vol 140 (3) ◽  
pp. 280-287 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas Winkler ◽  
Max Ossenbrink ◽  
Moritz Knoche

When mature sweet cherries (Prunus avium L.) came into contact with sweet cherry juice, cracking dramatically increased. The objectives of our study were: 1) to quantify the cracking of fruit in cherry juice, 2) to determine which constituent(s) of the juice especially promote cracking and, 3) to establish its/their mode of action in promoting cracking. Artificial juice was made up as an aqueous solution of the same five pure chemicals and at the same relative concentrations as the five major osmolytes of real sweet cherry juice. Artificial and real juice was used at half-isotonic concentrations as the real juice from that batch of fruit. Cracking of sweet cherries placed in either artificial or real juice was more rapid and occurred for lower net water uptakes than of fruit placed in half-isotonic polyethylene glycol 6000. The crack-promoting component in sweet cherry juice was malic acid. Further tests with malic acid, and other organic acids, and with different concentrations of malic acid, with and without pH control, and with the enantiomers of malic acid, showed the effects were primarily related to the pH of the incubation solution. Leakage of anthocyanin from discs of flesh was increased in the presence of malic acid and greater in hypotonic than hypertonic solutions, suggesting that malic acid increases the permeability of the plasma membrane and tonoplast and weakens the cell walls. Malic acid may be an important link (amplifier) in a reaction chain that begins with the bursting of individual epidermal cells and ends with the formation of macroscopic skin cracks.


Author(s):  
G. Simon

The rain induced fruit cracking is a big, serious and costly problem for cherry growers. Cracked fruits lose their value and they are not marketable because of the poor fruit quality. Cracked fruits have different storage diseases and shorter storage and shelf life. There are many influencing factors of the cherry fruit cracking such as: water uptake; fruit characteristics (fruit size, fruit firmness; anatomy and strength of the fruit skin, stomata in fruit skin, cuticular properties, osmotic concentration, water capacity of the fruit pulp, growth stage of the fruit,); orchard temperature and other environmental conditions; The most effective protection technique is the plastic rain cover over the tree rows. The installation of these equipments is too expensive for the cherry growers. That is the reason why researchers tried to find other less expensive and sufficiently effective ways against the Lim induced fruit cracking. Several calcium formulas: calcium chloride (CaC1,), calcium hydroxide (Ca (OH)2) and calcium nitrate (Ca(NO3)2 ) can be sprayed in appropriate concentration. Spraying with other mineral salts (aluminium and copper salts, borax) and PBRs (Plant Bioregulators) may be also effective to reduce fruit cracking.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
José Quero-García ◽  
Philippe Letourmy ◽  
José Antonio Campoy ◽  
Camille Branchereau ◽  
Svetoslav Malchev ◽  
...  

AbstractRain-induced fruit cracking is a major problem in sweet cherry cultivation. Basic research has been conducted to disentangle the physiological and mechanistic bases of this complex phenomenon, whereas genetic studies have lagged behind. The objective of this work was to disentangle the genetic determinism of rain-induced fruit cracking. We hypothesized that a large genetic variation would be revealed, by visual field observations conducted on mapping populations derived from well-contrasted cultivars for cracking tolerance. Three populations were evaluated over 7–8 years by estimating the proportion of cracked fruits for each genotype at maturity, at three different areas of the sweet cherry fruit: pistillar end, stem end, and fruit side. An original approach was adopted to integrate, within simple linear models, covariates potentially related to cracking, such as rainfall accumulation before harvest, fruit weight, and firmness. We found the first stable quantitative trait loci (QTLs) for cherry fruit cracking, explaining percentages of phenotypic variance above 20%, for each of these three types of cracking tolerance, in different linkage groups, confirming the high complexity of this trait. For these and other QTLs, further analyses suggested the existence of at least two-linked QTLs in each linkage group, some of which showed confidence intervals close to 5 cM. These promising results open the possibility of developing marker-assisted selection strategies to select cracking-tolerant sweet cherry cultivars. Further studies are needed to confirm the stability of the reported QTLs over different genetic backgrounds and environments and to narrow down the QTL confidence intervals, allowing the exploration of underlying candidate genes.


Author(s):  
Michaela Benková ◽  
Iveta Čičová ◽  
Daniela Benedikova ◽  
Lubomir Mendel ◽  
Miroslav Glasa

Abstract The work is focused on the evaluation of variability of morphological and pomological characteristics of several old sweet cherries (Prunus avium L.) that were found in different Slovak regions. The experimental work has been performed during two years, 2014 and 2015. The following characteristics according to the descriptor list of subgenus Cerasus were evaluated - period of flowering and ripening, morphological characteristics of the flowers, fruit size, fruit weight, and quality parameters. The results showed high variability of evaluated accessions. From the 13 surveyed localities, the most valuable accessions were found in the locality Hornį Streda - places Čachtice, Krakovany, Nitra, and Brdárka. During the collecting expeditions, 170 accessions of sweet cherry, with fruit of the different quality were found. The most interesting accessions were grafted onto rootstocks with different intensity of growth (Prunus avium L., Prunus mahaleb L., and ‘Gisela5’). Some of the selected cherry accessions can be used for commercial growing after tests, while some of them can be used only for collection of genetic resources and as potential genitors in breeding programmes.


2007 ◽  
Vol 87 (3) ◽  
pp. 545-550 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. A. Cline ◽  
M. Trought

Rain-induced cracking of sweet cherries (Prunus avium L.) is a major problem in many cherry growing regions throughout the world. One method to reduce cracking is to grow cracking resistant cultivars; however, no completely effective control measures are currently available to eliminate this problem. Studies conducted in New Zealand to test the ameliorating properties of gibberellic acid sprays to reduce cracking were examined. The results revealed that repeated or singular foliar applications at 10 or 40 mg L-1 gibberellic acid (GA3), respectively, increased both fruit cracking, and fruit firmness, but delayed fruit colour development. Key words: Prunus avium, cherry splitting, cracking


Antioxidants ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (11) ◽  
pp. 534 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dominika Średnicka-Tober ◽  
Alicja Ponder ◽  
Ewelina Hallmann ◽  
Agnieszka Głowacka ◽  
Elżbieta Rozpara

The aim of this study was to evaluate and compare the content of a number of bioactive compounds and antioxidant activity of fruits of selected local and commercial sweet cherry (Prunus avium L.) cultivars. The experiment showed that the selected cultivars of sweet cherries differ significantly in the content of polyphenolic compounds and carotenoids. The fruits of commercial sweet cherry cultivars were, on average, richer in polyphenols (the sum of phenolic compounds determined chromatographically), flavonoids, as well as anthocyanins and were characterized by higher antioxidant activity when compared to the local, traditional cultivars. In the group of the traditional sweet cherry cultivars, particular attention could be paid to Black Late cv., showing the highest antioxidant activity of fruits. In the group of commercial sweet cherry cultivars, Cordia and Sylvia fruits could be recognized as being rich in bioactive compounds with high antioxidant activity. Yellow skin cultivars were characterized by the highest concentrations of carotenoids. Strong positive correlations between the identified bioactive compounds and antioxidant activity of fruits were also found. Although different cultivars of sweet cherries show a high variability in phenolics and carotenoids profiles as well as in the antioxidant activity of fruits, they all should be, similarly to other types of cherries, recognized as a rich source of bioactive compounds with an antioxidant potential.


Pathogens ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kadriye Çağlayan ◽  
Vahid Roumi ◽  
Mona Gazel ◽  
Eminur Elçi ◽  
Mehtap Acioğlu ◽  
...  

High throughput sequencing of total RNA isolated from symptomatic leaves of a sweet cherry tree (Prunus avium cv. 0900 Ziraat) from Turkey identified a new member of the genus Robigovirus designated cherry virus Turkey (CVTR). The presence of the virus was confirmed by electron microscopy and overlapping RT-PCR for sequencing its whole-genome. The virus has a ssRNA genome of 8464 nucleotides which encodes five open reading frames (ORFs) and comprises two non-coding regions, 5′ UTR and 3′ UTR of 97 and 296 nt, respectively. Compared to the five most closely related robigoviruses, RdRp, TGB1, TGB2, TGB3 and CP share amino acid identities ranging from 43–53%, 44–60%, 39–43%, 38–44% and 45–50%, respectively. Unlike the four cherry robigoviruses, CVTR lacks ORFs 2a and 5a. Its genome organization is therefore more similar to African oil palm ringspot virus (AOPRV). Using specific primers, the presence of CVTR was confirmed in 15 sweet cherries and two sour cherries out of 156 tested samples collected from three regions in Turkey. Among them, five samples were showing slight chlorotic symptoms on the leaves. It seems that CVTR infects cherry trees with or without eliciting obvious symptoms, but these data should be confirmed by bioassays in woody and possible herbaceous hosts in future studies.


Plants ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 440
Author(s):  
Andreas Winkler ◽  
Deborah Riedel ◽  
Daniel Alexandre Neuwald ◽  
Moritz Knoche

Sweet cherries are susceptible to rain-cracking. The fruit skin is permeable to water, but also to solutes. The objectives of this study were to (1) establish whether a solute efflux occurs when a sweet cherry fruit is incubated in water; (2) identify the solutes involved; (3) identify the mechanism(s) of efflux; and (4) quantify any changes in solute efflux occurring during development and storage. Solute efflux was gravimetrically measured in wetted fruit as the increasing dry mass of the bathing solution, and anthocyanin efflux was measured spectrophotometrically. Solute and anthocyanin effluxes from a wetted fruit and water influx increased with time. All fluxes were higher for the cracked than for the non-cracked fruit. The effluxes of osmolytes and anthocyanins were positively correlated. Solute efflux depended on the stage of development and on the cultivar. In ‘Regina’, the solute efflux was lowest during stage II (25 days after full bloom (DAFB)), highest for mid-stage III (55 DAFB), and slightly lower at maturity (77 DAFB). In contrast with ‘Regina’, solute efflux in ‘Burlat’ increased continuously towards maturity, being 4.8-fold higher than in ‘Regina’. Results showed that solute efflux occurred from wetted fruit. The gravimetrically determined water uptake represents a net mass change—the result of an influx minus a solute efflux.


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