Comparison of fruit development and sugar accumulation dynamics and fruit quality between fruits from early and late bloom‘Feizixiao’litchi

Fruit development,sugar accumulation dynamics and fruit quality were comparatively studied between fruit from early and late blooms on the same panicle in litchi cv.'Feizixiao'.The results showed that no differences in the growth patterns of whole fruit and fruit parts(single S pattern) were revealed between fruit from female bloom at different dates.Their fruit growth could be divided into two stages(stage I and stage II),and stage II could be divided into two substages(IIa and IIb).However,fruit from earlier bloom showed 10 d longer in stage I than that from late bloom.It was presumed that the significant lower growth rate of the whole fruit and aril from late bloom during stage IIb were related to their obviously lower growth rate of the pericarp and seedcoat during stage I and stage IIa compared with the fruit from early bloom.In both case,fruit accumulated more reducing sugars than sucrose and the main sugar accumulating period was in stage IIa for fruit from early bloom and in stage IIb for the fruit from late bloom.There was no significant difference in sugars content between fruits from early and late bloom.The better quality of fruit from early bloom than that from late bloom was because the former had bigger fruit mass,lower total acid(TA) and higher TSS/TA ratio.