Morphological, biochemical and qualitative changes occurred during growth and development of three pomegranate cultivars were studied at AICRP on Arid Zone Fruits, Department of Horticulture, MPKV, Rahuri. Various changes were determined at 30 days intervals from anthesis till harvest. The pomegranate fruit in all cultivars showed single sigmoid pattern of growth. The size, weight and volume of the fruit of each cultivar increased while the specific gravity increased earlier and then decreased after 90 days in Cv. Bhagwa and after 120 days in Cv. Mridula and Sel-4 to less than one. The elongated oval shape of fruit at the early stage changed to round with prominent suppressions on sides at maturity stage. From those studies, it was revealed that the pomegranate fruits showed colour changes from initial green to orange red and high red at maturity stage and it can be harvested within 150 to 180 days. Among biochemical changes the total soluble solids and TSS: acid ratio increased while the acidity decreased with the advancement in the age of fruit. The total anthocyanin content in arils of pomegranate fruit increased with the advancement in the age of fruit. For qualitative changes, it was found that the percentage of arils and the juice content of arils increased, while the percentage of rind, rind thickness and seed content decreased gradually with the advancement in the age of fruit in each cultivar under study. The percentage of juice content was higher in Mridula at all the stages of maturity than Bhagwa and Sel-4. Seed hardness increased as the fruit matured. Incidence of internal breakdown of arils was noticed earlier in Bhagwa.

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Annona is one of the favourite dry land fruit of Maharashtra, because it is hardy in nature and drought tolerant. One of the important bottlenecks to increase the area under production is unavailability of suitable and improved varieties. Among 101 genotypes collected from Western Maharashtra; twenty two genotypes were found superior for physicochemical characteristics. On the basis of two year data (2011 and 2012); the highest fruit pulp percentage was found in Island Gem (61.72) and SG-8 (60.46), but genotype SG-8 was superior for other fruit quantitative and biochemical characters. Dendrogram using average linkage on the basis of physicochemical characteristics revealed that genotype SG-8, Island Gem and Pink Mammoth formed distinct cluster from other genotypes. The Annona is highly perishable fruit, so shelf life is an important trait. The genotype SG-8 showed highest (five days) shelf life among selected genotypes. Hence, the genotypes collected from various regions had significant variation for various traits and can be evaluated physicochemically and promising one can be selected for further improvement programme.

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