Assessing the Harvest Maturity of Brazilian Mangoes

No clear criterion exists to determine the optimum time to harvest mango. Some empirical relations are used to assess maturity, such as shoulder development. Moreover, as a result of the typical growing conditions in tropical climates, a huge variation in maturity and ripeness exists, seriously hampering the export of fruit in the global chain. The consequence for consumers in western countries is that sometimes mangoes are overripe at the retailer, or have to be kept for several days, even weeks, to reach the edible state, provided they do not rot in the meantime. To ensure an edible quality, the chlorophyll content in the fruit flesh, measured at harvest by Time-resolved Reflectance Spectroscopy (TRS), could be used as a maturity criterion for mango fruit. Commercially grown fruit were harvested in Brazil and transported to Italy by plane. Fruits were measured using TRS at 630 nm for absorption coefficient (µa) and skin colour. The development of µa was followed on 60 fruits during 15 days of storage at 20°C. The remainders of fruit were used to measure firmness destructively. Absorption coefficient decreased during shelf life according to a logistic pattern, as expected for colour development. Taking the variation between the individual fruit into account, 72% of the variation was accounted for. Nevertheless, µa assessed at harvest could be converted into a biological shift factor (BSF), as an expression of the maturity at harvest of each individual fruit. This biological shift factor explained about 70% of the variation in firmness development in individual fruit. These preliminary results indicate that TRS methodology coupled with BSF theory could be useful in assessing maturity at harvest and assuring acceptable eating quality of mango

Influence of thirteen different strains of ericoid endomycorrhizae on rooting and growth of micropropagated azalea mollis

In the wild, most of the Ericaceae are mycorrhized by typical ericoid endomycorrhizae thus overcoming the absence of root hairs and the difficulty of absorption of some nutrients in low pH soils. Many authors studied the relationship between root colonization and soil composition but only a few of them took in consideration the species of the fungi mycorrhizing the roots. Our previous works on Vaccinium pointed out the effects of different fungal strains on rooting and growth of in vitro produced plants. The aim of this research was to study the effect of the inoculum with different fungal strains on rooting, acclimatization and growth of the deciduous Azalea mollis cv. Glowing Embers (Rhododendron japonicum), micropropagated in vitro. Sterile microcuttings, planted on a sterilized turf substrate, were inoculated with Hymenoschiphus ericae, seven different strains of Oidiodendron maius, and some unidentified sterile mycelia, by superimposing the rooting medium on a pure fungal culture in agar. Rooting time and percentage was checked. Plant height and rosette diameter, leaf and shoot number of each plant were measured one year after transferring to ex vitro conditions. All tested strains were able to infect the roots of the azalea, but different effects were shown on microcutting rooting time and percentage. Oidiodendron strains were generally more effective than Hymenoschiphus on growth of established plantlets

'Cyanidin volumetric index' and 'chromaticity coordinates ratio' to characterize red raspberry (Rubus idaeus)

The object of this work is presented in a larger research project concerning ‘New indexes to evidence the nutritional quality of small fruits’ in progress at the Analytical Food Research Laboratories, University of Milan. The present paper contains data that contribute to the analytical characterization of 12 varieties of red raspberry through the high-performance liquid chromatography determination of the aglycon ‘cyanidin’ derived from chemical hydrolysis of berries. Even more interesting results are the proposal of the ‘cyanidin volumetric index’, by which it is possible to compare different red raspberry varieties with higher meaningfulness. A new possible correlation between the ratio of chromaticity coordinates ‘a/b’ and the cyanidin content of red raspberries has been identified

Grape berry responses to sequential flooding and heatwave events: a physiological, transcriptional, and metabolic overview

Grapevine cultivation, such as the whole horticulture, is currently challenged by several factors, among which the extreme weather events occurring under the climate change scenario are the most relevant. Within this context, the present study aims at characterizing at the berry level the physiological response of Vitis vinifera cv. Sauvignon Blanc to sequential stresses simulated under a semi-controlled environment: flooding at bud-break followed by multiple summer stress (drought plus heatwave) occurring at pre-vèraison. Transcriptomic and metabolomic assessments were performed through RNASeq and NMR, respectively. A comprehensive hormone profiling was also carried out. Results pointed out a different response to the heatwave in the two situations. Flooding caused a developmental advance, determining a different physiological background in the berry, thus affecting its response to the summer stress at both transcriptional levels, with the upregulation of genes involved in oxidative stress responses, and metabolic level, with the increase in osmoprotectants, such as proline and other amino acids. In conclusion, sequential stress, including a flooding event at bud-break followed by a summer heatwave, may impact phenological development and berry ripening, with possible consequences on berry and wine quality. A berry physiological model is presented that may support the development of sustainable vineyard management solutions to improve the water use efficiency and adaptation capacity of actual viticultural systems to future scenario

The impact of the institutional environment on the value relevance of fair values

Most prior studies attribute valuation discounts on certain fair valued assets to measurement error or bias. We argue that institutional differences across countries (e.g., information environment or market sophistication) affect investors’ ability to process and impound fair value information in their valuation. We predict that the impact of the institutional environment on value relevance is particularly pronounced for reported fair values of assets designated at fair value through profit or loss (hereafter, “FVO assets”), for which investor experience is lowest and complexity is highest. Using a global sample of IFRS banks, we find that FVO assets are generally less value relevant than held-for-trading assets (HFT) and available-for-sale assets (AFS). By partitioning countries into market- and bank-based economies to proxy for institutional differences, we find that the valuation discount on FVO assets is more pronounced in bank-based economies. Additional tests suggest that this valuation discount is attenuated by a richer firm-level information environment and the presence of institutional investors with fair value experience