MATURITY, CHILLING REQUIREMENT, AND DESSERT QUALITY OF ‘D’ANJOU’ AND ‘BOSC’ PEARS

‘d’Anjou’ and ‘Bosc’ pears (Pyrus communis L.) were harvested at weekly intervals for a 3-week period beginning at the start of commercial harvest in 1979 season in the Hood River Valley, Oregon.
Late-harvested ‘d’Anjou’ fruit at flesh firmness of 5.9 to 5.4 kg ripened with fair to good quality following 30 days storage at -1.1°C while late-harvested ‘Bosc’ with similar fruit firmness required less than 7 days chilling at -1.1°C to develop the ripening capacity. ‘d’Anjou’ harvested at optimum flesh firmness of 6.4 to 6.1 kg required 60 days of postharvest chilling to ripen with quality while ‘Bosc’ with similar maturity were capable of ripening after 10 days chilling.
Dessert quality of late-harvested ‘d’Anjou’ fruit declined after 90 days of storage while quality of optimum-harvested ‘d’Anjou’ continued to improve until 150 days in storage.
Dessert quality of ‘Bosc’ were independent of fruit maturity and began to decline after 60 days storage. ‘Bosc’ pears accumulated internal ethylene at faster rates and to higher concentrations than ‘d’Anjou’ fruit. ‘Bosc’ pears were also more sensitive to internal ethylene for the development of ripening capacity than ‘d’Anjou’ fruit.

III International Symposium on Pear Growing

P.M. Chen, W.M. Mellenthin

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.1982.124.26