Fig. 1.

Measurement of finger drop variations during post-harvest ripening of Cavendish banana through pedicel rupture force measurement. Banana fruits harvested at the mature green stage were stored overnight at 20 °C before treatment with 10 000 ppm of azethyl (5% ethylene+95% nitrogen) for 24 h. Fruits were further kept at 20 °C in air for 7 d to ripen. Banana finger drop was evaluated on the basis of the pedicel rupture force expressed in Newtons (N). This force was measured daily from the harvesting point (Ht) to day 7, as described by Chillet et al. (2008). Each data point is the mean of values obtained from at least four fruits originating from four replicate bunches. Vertical bars indicate standard deviation (SD). When no bar is shown, the SD is smaller than the symbol.