Samer Abou Hamdan)1(*and Bayan Muzher )1(
(1) Pome and Grapevine Division, Sweida, GCSAR,Syria.
(*Corresponding author: Samer Ghaleb Abou Hamdan, E-Mail: abuhamdansamer@yahoo.com).
Abstract
This research was carried out in the General Commission for Scientific Agricultural Research- Pome and Grapevine Division in Sweida province during 2016 and 2017 on three introduced pears varieties: Santamaria, Abyvetal,Bartlett, in order to determine the optimal dates for the consumption maturity time of these varieties according to the biological, physical, and chemical indicators, and connect them with sensory tests at each harvest date. The results showed that the fruits of these varieties needed 137 to 157 days for ripening, and its need for thermal accumulation was between 1759 and 2089 thermal unit, where the least need for the Santamaria variety with a significant difference from the two varieties Abyvetal and Bartlett at significant level 5%. The fruit firmness decreased as it matured, and the Bartlett variety characterized by high firmness at the date of 7/8, where it was 9.3 kg/cm2 and decreased to 3.7 kg/cm2 at the date of 3/10. The percentage of soluble solids and total sugar increased as the fruits of the varieties matured, and the highest percentage of soluble solids was in Bartlett variety (17.4%) on 25/9, and the highest percentage of total sugar also in the variety (13.1%) on 18/9, and in Abyvetal variety the percentage of soluble solids reached 16.8% on 18/9. The percentage of acidity was in the early harvest dates and decreased as the varieties matured, and the highest percentage was in fruits of the Santamaria variety (0.28%) at the harvest date 7/8. When connecting these indicators with sensory tests it was found that the optimal date of consumption maturity in the Santamaria variety was between 21/8 and 28/8, and in the Abyvetal and Bartlett varieties between 8/9 and 18/9. These results show the importance of connecting environmental, physical, and chemical indicators with each other as well as with sensory tests to determine the dates of consumption maturity and therefore reach the required quality indicators for each variety.
Keywords: Pear, Harvest date, Mature indicators, Consumption maturity.
Full paper in Arabic: pdf