Maturity at har6est
Maturity is one of the major factors that deter-mines the compositional quality of fruits and
vegetables. Total vitamin C of red pepper was
about 30% higher than that of green pepper
(Howard et al., 1994). Tomato fruit harvested
green and ripened at 20°C to table-ripeness con-tained less AA than those harvested at the table-ripe stage (Kader et al., 1977). Betancourt et al.
(1977) also reported that tomato fruit analyzed at
the ‘breaker’ stage contained only 69% of their
potential AA concentration if ripened on the vine
to table-ripe. Fruit accumulated AA during ripen-ing on or off the plant, but the increase was much
greater for those fruit left on the plant. AA con-tent increased with ripening on the plant in apri-cots, peaches, and papayas, but decreased in
apples and mangoes (Table 4). Lee et al. (1982)
reported that large and more mature peas con-tained less ascorbic acid than smaller and imma-ture peas.
Nagy (1980) reported that immature citrus
fruits contained the highest concentration of vita-min C, whereas ripe fruits contained the least.
Although vitamin C concentration decreased dur-ing maturation of citrus fruits, the total vitamin C
content per fruit tended to increase because the
total volume of juice and fruit size increased with
advancing maturity.