abstract evaluation of pomological characteristics can be useful in selection of best cultivars for commercial purposes. during this project, seven cultivars of sweet cherry including five cultivars from hungary (‘stella’, ‘sunburst’, ‘germesdorf’, ‘summit’ and ‘subima’) and two control cultivars (‘cillage blamarka’ and ‘siahmashad’) were studied by completely rondomized blocks design with thre...

The fruit of the prickly pear cactus (“Tuna blanca”, Opuntia amyclaea) has a sweet juicy pulp containing numerous hard-coated seeds, which limit the overall acceptability of the fruit. This study extended previous attempts to develop prickly pear fruits with reduced or smaller seed structures by applying gibberellic acid to floral buds. Solutions of gibberellic acid (GA3) were applied by sprayi...

Many ant species have morphologically distinct worker sub-castes. This presumably increases colony efficiency and is thought to be optimized by natural selection. Optimality arguments are, however, often lacking in detail. In ants, the benefits of having workers in a range of sizes have rarely been explained mechanistically. In Atta leafcutter ants, large workers specialize in defence and also ...

Identification and discrimination of most cranberry varieties is problematic. There are few qualitative morphological traits with which to discriminate varieties of cranberry. Apple varieties, on the other hand, are easily discriminated, i.e. the fruit of Golden Delicious versus Red Delicious apples. Vegetative morphology, e.g. leaf shape, size, etc., of most cranberry varieties is very similar...

Auxin is one of the most prominent phytohormones regulating many aspects of fleshy fruit development including fruit set, fruit size through the control of cell division and cell expansion, and fruit ripening. To shed light on the role of auxin fruit ripening, we have previously shown that Sl-ARF4 is a major player in mediating the auxin control of sugar metabolism in tomato fruit (cv MicroTom)...

The vascularization of the pedicel in Marisol clementine (Citrus clementina Hort. ex Tanaka) has been characterized in relation to fruit growth. Phloem and xylem formation occurred during the first half of the period of fruit growth. Phloem cross-sectional area reached its maximum value by the end of fruitlet abscission, 78 d after anthesis (DAA), shortly after the rate of accumulation of dry m...

Studies of zoochorous seed dispersal systems often consider crop size, yet seldom consider the kinds and amounts of fruits surrounding parent plants (the fruit neighborhood) when attempting to explain among-plant variation in fruit removal. We studied avian frugivory at 24 Schefflera morototoni trees from February to May 1998 in central Puerto Rico. The number of fruits removed by avian seed di...

The oil content in olive fruits of different sizes from irrigated high (‘on’) and low (‘off’) yielding olive trees of cvs. Barnea and Manzanillo were determined at different stages of fruit maturation. The fruit size range at all stages of maturation is significantly higher on low yielding ‘off’ trees than on high yielding ‘on’ trees. The oil content in the mesocarp of olive fruits is not yield...

In apple cultivation, simulation models may be used to monitor fruit size during the growth and development process to predict production levels and to optimize fruit quality. Here, Fuji apples cultivated in spindle-type systems were used as the model crop. Apple size was measured during the growing period at an interval of about 20 days after full bloom, with three weather stations being used ...

Automation of fruit recognition and classification is an interesting application of computer vision. Traditional fruit classification methods have often relied on manual operations based on visual ability and such methods are tedious, time consuming and inconsistent. External shape appearance is the main source for fruit classification. In recent years, computer machine vision and image process...