The post-picking ripening of fruits is a condition of necessity which finds its employment all over the world and can be applied to the product picked in advance or in a normal picking period.
There are several techniques (described below) which, from a practical point of view, allow to reach in a short time a uniform ripening of fruits in order to allow the operators a greater timeliness of offer and therefore obtain economic advantages, a very important characteristic from a commercial point of view.

At an operative level, for clear reasons of practicality (for example to avoid the abnormal premature drop, to assure the preservability, to avoid parasitic and physiologic diseases, to allow the workability of the product avoiding contusions and wounds, etc.), the fruit and vegetable products are picked before their physiologic ripening (picking commercial ripening).
The consumption ripening - which not always coincides exactly with the physiologic ripening - is obtained in the course of time, i.e.: during the preservation and/or commercial distribution. It is necessary, therefore, to point out some main aspects of the problem:

a)  fruits are hardly ever picked in the stage of physiologic ripening;

b) fruits are picked in such a stage of ripening (picking ripening) so that they can autonomously reach, later, the physiological ripening or, to say better, the consumption ripening.

From what has been said before, it is evident that fruits at the picking moment do not have, generally, the needed requirements (colour, melting, taste, aroma) for their consumption. Such requirements are obtained in the course of their preservation and/or commercial distribution.
However, there are some species which have difficulty in reaching the needed requirements either for physiologic (typical for each species) and for technical reasons. Fruits, after having been picked, have colour, pulp melting, taste and aroma too different.

<Back