Central Food Technological Research Institute, Mysore.
The paper covers detailed data on the nature and extent of variation in physico-chemical composition of purple passion fruit (Passiflora edulis, Sims.) as affected by the dates of picking and plant to plant variation. Samples of twelve fruits each at intervals of a fortnight in the main season (July-August, 1952), were picked from each of the six earmarked plants at the Pomological Research Station Coonoor,(India) and were analysed for fruit components, refractometric solids (°Brix), acidity,°Brix/acid ratio, pH, ascorbic acid, reducing, non-reducing and total sugars. Results of detailed statistical analysis are presented and discussed. Wide variations in some characters have been noted. An over-all trend in the changes of the various physico-chemical characters of the fruit as well as juice, based on means of 72 observations at each of the four dates of picking has been illustrated.
The results indicatad that between the six plants under study, there were no significant differences regarding peel and juice content, refractometric solids, titrable acidity,°Brix/acid ratio and pH, while in the other physico-chemical characters studied, the differences were significant.
Comparing the four successive dates of picking during 1952, the differences with respect to all the physico-chemical characters studied were very highly significant (at 0.1 per cent level) except in the case of reducing sugars wherein the differences were not significant. The above results, however, pertain to passion fruits picked from the selected six plants from the same orchard and during one season in a particular year (1952).
