Fruit Yield and Quality of 'Florida King' Peaches Subjected to Foliar Calcium Chloride Sprays at Different Growth Stages

Abstract

Peach fruit and trees are prone to various issues, regarding yield, quality and pest attack. Calcium plays several roles in plant and fruit development. Therefore the current study was conducted to evaluate the response of peach fruit to foliar application. The experiment was laid out in Randomized Complete Block Design with two factors factorial arrangement and three replicates. Calcium chloride was applied at the rate of 0, 1, 2 and 3%. The foliar application of calcium was done at pink bud stage, berry size fruit stage, and then at pit hardening stage of peach. The obtained resulted indicated that foliar application of calcium significantly improved peach fruit quality and yield. The highest fruit weight (142.6 g), yield tree–1 (15.6 kg), ascorbic acid content (6.67 mg‧100 g–1), total soluble solids (11.0°Bx), fruit juice pH (3.98), sugar to acid ratio (45.1), fruit firmness (3.90 kg‧cm–2) and fruit volume (155.6 cm3) was obtained with the application of 3% solution of calcium chloride at pit hardening stage but it significantly reduced the percent titratable acidity (0.3%) and disease incidence (5.8%). It was concluded that 3% calcium chloride applied at the pit hardening stage significantly boosted peach quality and fruit yield.

Preharvest Application of Salicylic Acid, Calcium Acetate and Proline for Improving Fruit Quality and Shelf Life of “Early Swelling” Peaches

“…The improvement of fruit physical properties indicated in this study could be attributed to their roles in alleviating stress impacts, preserving osmotic balance, protecting the photosynthetic products, scavenging free radicals and improving fruit development during growth stages (Galston et al, 1997, Ismail et al, 2014, Ali, 2014and Trovato et al, 2019. Shahid et al (2020) showed that preharvest application of calcium chloride during fruit growth stages increased fruit weight, diameter and flesh weight. Furthermore, preharvest application of salicylic acid enhanced physical characteristics of Egypt.…”

Effect of calcium nitrate treatment on reduction of berry shattering in ‘Cheongsoo’ grape cultivars

“…The results of this study show that berry firmness increases after CaNO3 application. Many other studies have reported a significant relationship between calcium levels and fruit firmness in apples, blueberries, and peaches (Mohebbi et al, 2020;Shahid et al, 2020;Lobos et al, 2021). According to a recent study in grapes (Martins et al, 2020), the internal structure of the berry changes due to the expression of genes that prevent pectin degradation and cell wall softening, thus leading to berry firmness.…”