FRUIT GROWTH AND QUALITY OF Annona muricata L. AT DIFFERENT POLLINATION INTENSITIES

Abstract

The experimental study was carried out at Teapa, Tabasco, México, during February to August 1999. Soursop (Annona muricata L) flowers were hand pollinated in order to determine the influence of pollination covering on fruit growth and final quality. Hand- ollination treatments covering 100, 75, 50 and 25% of the stigmas with pollen were compared versus open pollinated flowers. Flowers with all the stigmas pollinated presented 70 % of fruit-set and 67.5 % of harvested fruits. Whole-pollinated fruits showed symmetrical shapes and, at maturity, they had highest contents of total (199 mg g^-1 fresh pulp), reducing (47 mg g^-1 fresh pulp) and not reducing (152 mg g^-1 fresh pulp) sugars. Whole-pollinated average fruit weight was 973 g, which was superior to the other treatments (P ≤ 0.05), reaching over 70 % of fresh pulp of total fruit weight at maturity. Open pollination resulted in fruits of similar quality to those with 50 % of the stigmas hand-pollinated. Growth pattern of soursop fruits corresponds to a double sigmoidal. Whole-pollinated fruits grew more than all of the other treatments (P ≤ 0.05), which explain differences in fruit fresh weight, length and diameter.