G. Martinez et al., ETHYLENE BIOSYNTHESIS AND PHYSICOCHEMICAL CHANGES DURING FRUIT RIPENING OF CHERIMOYA (ANNONA-CHERIMOLA, MILL), Journal of Horticultural Science, 68(4), 1993, pp. 477-483
This work indicates that cherimoya behaves like a climacteric fruit af
ter harvesting, because it shows respiration and ethylene crises conne
cted with its ripening. The increase in ethylene production is caused
by an increase in the activities of ACC-synthase and ethylene-forming
enzyme (EFE), which are very low in the freshly picked fruit, but incr
ease rapidly over the second day, reaching a maximum on the third day.
During the climacteric there is also a low amount of 1-aminocycloprop
ane-1-carboxylic acid (ACC) in its conjugated form. Skin browning incr
eases after harvesting, but this is not related to a decrease of chlor
ophyll, since the chlorophyll level remains stable throughout the enti
re post-harvest period. The level of browning shows a good correlation
(r=0.947) with the L parameter of colour of reflection. There is a te
mporal coincidence between the onset of ethylene production, the degra
dation of starch, the loss of firmness and the build up of total sugar
s.