Abstract

SANTELLI, Paulo; CALBO, Maria Elisa Ribeiro  and  CALBO, Adonai Gimenez. Post-harvest physiology of palm fruits of Syagrus oleracea (Mart.) Becc. (Arecaceae). Acta Bot. Bras. [online]. 2006, vol.20, n.3, pp. 523-528. ISSN 0102-3306.  http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0102-33062006000300003.

Several aspects of post-harvest changes in fruits of a native palm species from the Central Plateau in mid-western Brazil were studied. Fruits of Syagrus oleracea (Mart.) Becc., commonly known as "gueroba", were evaluated regarding aspects such as: weight loss, internal gaseous volume, internal concentration of CO₂ and O₂, firmness, chilling injury and CO₂ and ethylene evolution. Fruits of S. oleracea are sensitive to chilling injury when stored at low temperatures such as 8 ºC where they failed to ripen after storage. The occurrence of a simultaneous climateric peak for CO₂ and ethylene plus the internal CO₂ and O₂ concentration patterns are strong evidence that this is a climateric fruit. The gaseous intercellular volumes obtained for S. oleracea fruits place them together with other organs that have medium quantity of these volumes, which means that this fruit may have medium susceptibility to impact injury and medium susceptibility to injury by compression.

Keywords : chilling injury; climateric; internal atmosphere; ripening.