Physical, Chemical and Morphological Characteristics of Banana Cultivars Depending on Maturation Stages

Abstract

The objective of this work was to morphologically characterize 15 banana cultivars and assess the physical and chemical characteristics of their fruits at two maturation stages, unripe (pre-climacteric) and ripening. The plants were evaluated regarding their pseudostem height and diameter, petiole length, leaf blade length, width and length-to-width ratio. The cultivar Ouro had fruits with lower diameter, total length, market weight and fresh weight at both stages, and also firmer pulp when they were unripe. The cultivar Caru-Roxa had higher fresh fruit and pulp weights, and the cultivar Terrinha had the highest percentage of pulp dry weight percentage in unripe and ripe fruits. The cultivars Maçã and Ouro had higher pulp-to-peel ratio in unripe fruits. The ripe peels had lower fresh weight and thickness and higher dry weight percentage compared to unripe peels. The fruit peel of the cultivar Marmelo had the highest fresh weight at both stages. The cultivars Marmelo and Maçã had higher percentage of peel dry weight percentage at both stages. The unripe pulp had lower soluble solids. The titratable acidity in the pulp increased with ripening. The average plant height ranged from 2.25 to 6.15 m. The cultivars that had the largest pseudostem diameters had also the highest heights, except the Prata-Anã and Prata-Graúda. The cultivar and maturity stage influenced all the characteristics evaluated in fruits, except the total and market lengths, which did not vary with the ripening of fruits.

Production and quality of banana ‘BRS Conquista’ bagged with different colored polypropylene bags

“…Likewise, similar values were found by Aquino et al (2017), who observed length and diameter values of approximately 14.00 and 38 cm in plants of the 'Prata' group, respectively. An experiment in Kenya evaluated the effect of blue-colored polyethylene bags and of non-bagging on cv.…”

Influence of Different ‘Prata-Anã’ Banana Bunch Ages on Post-Harvest Quality

“…The mean titratable acidity values observed in the present study 9 days after storage were similar to those found by Silva et al [21] while working with 'Prata-Anã' in two production cycles. These results are in line with [22] in that unripe bananas have low acidity, and during ripening this acidity slowly increases until reaching a maximum value when the fruit is ripe and later falls with its senescence. [23] obtained results superior to those found in this study, with 0.54g of malic acid per 100g of "Prata anã" banana pulp throughout the storage period.…”

Post-harvest physicochemical profile and bioactive compounds of 19 bananas and plantains genotypes

“…6a, 6c and 6e). During the ripening, this relation showed variations, which resulted in a higher pulp yield (Aquino et al 2017). In general, there was a decrease of the peel thickness during the fruit ripening (Figs.…”

“…The genotypes 'Simili Radjah' and 'Namwa Khom' showed lower values of C* and higher Hue* angle, which demonstrates to be the genotypes with the lightest pulp -12 -10 -8 -6 -4 -2 0 2 4 6 8 10 color (Table 3). With the ripening there is an increase of color intensity (*C), while the Hue* angle decreases, which indicates that the pulp gets more yellow/orange with the ripening (Aquino et al 2017). The genotype 'Namwa Khom' showed the highest intensity only when the fruit reached the stage 7.…”

“…6b, 6d and 6f ). In addition, the increase of the pulp-to-peel ratio can be attributed to the migration of water from peel to the pulp because of the osmotic gradient, due to the increase of the sugar contents in the pulp, in relation to the peel (Aquino et al 2017). In dessert banana genotype, the lower values of the pulp-to-peel ratio (highest peel thickness values) were verified in 'Pisang Kepok Bung' , 'Khai', 'Grande Naine' and 'Yangambi Km5' (Figs.…”