Climacteric fruit can be picked from the tree at maturity, but before they are fully ripe and can continue the ripening process later. In general, there will be an increase in quality during the picking-to-ripening stage. Ripening is controlled by the fruit-producing their own ethylene together with a significant increase in CO2 production.
Non-climacteric fruit, on the other hand, will maintain the quality they had at harvest without much beneficial change as this fruit produce little or no ethylene with only small changes in CO2 production. non-climacteric fruit therefore can only be harvested when fully ripe.
Table 1. List of climacteric and non-climacteric fruits.
Climacteric fruit |
Non-Climacteric Fruit |
Apple Apricot Avocado Banana Ber Cherimoya Fig Guava Kiwifruit Mango Melons Pear Peach Plum Persimmon Papaya Tomato Sapota Passion fruit |
Carambola Cherries Citrus Grape Litchi Loquat Olive Pineapple Pomegranate Strawberry
|