Abstract
The young, immature fruit of satsuma mandarin produced a great amount of ethylene. Starting after a few days off the tree, the fruit began producing ethylene at an increasing rate, rising to a maximum and falling off thereafter. The highest rate was obtained for the fruit harvested June 17. The rate of ethylene production decreased as the fruit increased in weight. For the young fruit harvested in May and June, the high rates of ethylene production were associated with browning of the fruit. For the fruit sampled in July browning was not observed and the increasing rate of ethylene production paralleled that of respiration, followed by yellowing of the rind. The fruit harvested in September and those of all subsequent harvests produced no measurable quantities of ethylene.
When young fruits were cut into small pieces, a large quantity of ethylene was evolved during the course of incubation. The smaller the segments the faster the rise in the rate. Flavedo, albedo and pulp tissue separated from the intact fruit also produced ethylene in a great amount. The ethylene production by the excised segments or albedo tissue was markedly prevented by the addition of cycloheximide.
