Abstract
The water uptake inducing cracking of sweet cherry fruit (Prunus avium L.) was investigated in relation to the reduced pressure in flesh intercellular space caused by respiration of the fruit. The respiratory quotient decreased from 0.74 on 28 DAB to 0.43 on 60 DAB, and highly correlated with DAB in a quadratic equation. Flesh intercellular space capacity was increased from the immature stage with fruit growth, then it attained maximum of 129.4 μL/fruit on 55 DAB. However it decreased greatly to 95.6 μL/fruit on 57 DAB, and it did not change until 60 DAB. The pressure of flesh intercellular space was around 3–10 Pa lower than ambient air pressure, and negative correlation was found between the respiratory quotient of the fruit and the flesh intercellular space pressure. These results suggested that water on the fruit surface was apparently sucked into flesh intercellular spaces by that decreased pressure, which resulted from the decrease of the respiratory quotient.
