The interaction between pH and CaCl2 concentration was the only combination of factors that affected coagulum firmness and gel firming rate.
As such, we measured fruit firmness (softening rate) to determine whether or not OE fruits softened later than WT fruits.
pH showed the most important influence on rennet coagulation time and gel firming rate, while coagulation temperature showed the highest contribution to predict the firmness parameters.
Changes in firmness and respiration rate were also seen when unripe fruits stored at 4°C (E3: R-, C+) were compared to unripe fruits prior to storage (E1: R-, C-; firmness: 43.2 versus 72.5 N; Respiration rate: 94.3 versus 28.8 CO2 kg1 h, respectively) [ 3].
As there were major changes in the fruit physiology beginning at 70 DAFB in terms of firmness, dry matter and growth rate, the percent growth rate was compared with the percent change in cell wall material, to determine if the yield of cell wall material was reflected by growth.
Rennet coagulation time, coagulum firmness, curd firmness and gel firming rate were the coagulation parameters measured using a gelograph.
Firmness of both apple cultivars declined during fruit growth, but differed in initial firmness and the subsequent rate of decline.
Twelve replicates were completed to measure weight loss, respiration rate, total soluble solids and fruit firmness.
The corresponding optimum values for all the dependent variables obtained were total plate count (2.82 log CFU/cm2), firmness (65.22 N) and respiration rate (43.30 mg CO2 kg−1 h−1 FW).
Twelve fruit of each maturity stage (medium size, M; mature green, MG; breaker, BR; light orange, LO; orange, O; pink, P; red, R and red ripe, RR) were harvested for immediate analyses of fruit color, firmness, ethylene production and respiration rate (CO2 production) as described by [ 22, 50].
