Talk:Ripening

Shortage of pollinators can be an unrecognized factor in poor ripening of fruit. In a test in the Rio Grande valley of Texas, increasing the number of beehives in cantaloupes by a factor of about 2 1/2, increased the total crop by almost seven tons per acre, mostly due to increased sugar content in the fruit.

That's cool, but I'd like to see a reference. Also, a percentage of improvement would be better than a tonnage, unless you state the tonnage per acre before the extra bees where introduced.  — db48x 05:17, Mar 12, 2004 (UTC)

Do Lemons ripen to yellow when green?

That is the whole question. If you pick some fruit too early it will not ripen. I believe lemons and oranges begin to dry up when picked green and do not ripen to the yellow, esp lemons, which means a lemon is ripe. Is this right or not. And if not is there a best way to ripen them,,,,,off the tree;;;; and still retain the full juice?

no fucking Thanks User:Al Hawthorne

The application of analogist and inhibitor of plant hormone can control the timing of ripening. For example, banana are picked when they are still green. The banana was kept in a room with high conc. of ethylene for a period, the banana will become ripen when ready in market. Chemicals would be used to inhibit ripening of lemon to maintain the yearly supply. Shrimp wong 16:57, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Does the second sentence in the main article make sense to anyone? Especially considering that the first sentence says that during ripening the acid content decreases in fruit.

Mark Z (talk) 17:13, 19 February 2008 (UTC)Mark Z

WikiProject Food and drink Tagging

This article talk page was automatically added with {{WikiProject Food and drink}} banner as it falls under Category:Food or one of its subcategories. If you find this addition an error, Kindly undo the changes and update the inappropriate categories if needed. The bot was instructed to tagg these articles upon consenus from WikiProject Food and drink. You can find the related request for tagging here . If you have concerns , please inform on the project talk page -- TinucherianBot (talk) 11:25, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Artificial Ripening Using Acetylene?

Does artificially ripening fruit with a toxic hydrocarbon sound implausible to anyone else? There's no reference cited for this "fact" but everything else I have read lists ethylene gas as the cause for the ripening process. Any chemists/biologists out there wanna take a stab at this?

CleverPun (talk) 20:58, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Calcium carbide [C2C] is placed in a sealed package under fruits and water vapour from fruits when reacting with C2C releases sufficient ethylene for ripening as per this reference. Hope this clears up. Docku:“what up?” 21:43, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Brix acid ratio

We should either make a page or add it in a paragraph here. This source might help. [1] - 76.97.245.5 (talk) 06:36, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Ripening indicators

I am a little confused by this section. It starts by saying that iodine can be used to "check if the fruit is ripening or rotting by showing whether starch in the fruit has turned into sugar." This implies that a ripening fruit will be mainly starch, while the rotting fruit has turned into sugar. At least, this is how I see it. Usually I think of ripening and rotting as two sequential processes. First it ripens, then it rots. Therefore, starch turning into sugar parallels ripening and rotting.

Yet later on it says that a rotted fruit will have starch and the iodine will be dark, while a light iodine color indicates that most of the starch is gone into sugar. (and implied ripe)

So I'm a little confused as to which way it is. Does the ripening fruit or the rotting one have a lot of starch? - ellusion - (talk) 09:14, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

>>An unripe fruit has high a high starch content. The ripening process converts these starches to sugars, so a ripe fruit tastes sweet. Some low-sugar fruits will begin to "rot" at this stage, as molds, insects, and bacteria break down the fruit into humus. But, many fruits with a higher sugar content will begin to ferment instead. Wild yeasts and bacteria settle down in the ripe fruits, consuming the sugar and producing ethanol and CO2. Thus, at this stage we get another food product, alcoholic beverages. James Monroe (talk) 05:50, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

>>>>Ah, thank you for that explanation. So a fruit that is ripening will be converting starch -> sugar. The fruit at "peak" ripeness will be mostly sugar. The rotting fruit is then being turned into humus or alcohol.

So as I understand it, a fruit still ripening will turn dark with an iodine drop. A fully ripe fruit should in theory then remain yellow. Does this sound correct?- ellusion - (talk) 06:53, 16 April 2010 (UTC)