There are two degrees of maturity of apples, equally important to determine the time of harvest:
- physiological maturity or maturation;
- technological maturity or ripeness of the fruit.
In order to properly determine the date of harvest, it is necessary to know that apples have a lot of starch – spare substances which decomposes with maturing and turns into sugar. Physiological maturity occurs when the apples are biggest, and seeds can germinate under favourable conditions. Technological maturity occurs when the fruit reaches the best characteristics needed for further use (consumption, storage, keeping in cold storage or processing).
Indicators of maturity are:
• morphological properties of the fruit (shape and colour of the fruit, colour of the fleshy part and the colour of seeds);
• mechanical properties (easy separation of stems of the fruit from the tree, strength of parenchyma of the fruit, juiciness of the fruit);
• chemical properties of the fruit and juice (the amount of starch and sugar, the amount of total acid);
• physiological properties of fruits (age of fruit and fruit breathing).
Date of harvest depends on genetic properties of the fruit trees, on the position of the orchard, on the meteorological conditions and so on. If we want apples to be refrigerated, it is necessary to harvest the fruits while there is still starch in them. In storages fresh fruits still live - breathe and during storage they go through many changes, eg. with hydrolysis starch breaks down into sugar. Apples are due to consumption when starch is no longer present in them.
Reference: www.savjetodavna.hr
