Effect of Bagging on Fruit Coloration of Litchi (Litchi chinensis Sonn. cv. Feizixiao)

Experimnts of fruit bagging were conducted in close planting litchi orchard at Litchi's Extension Base of Guangdong Province from 1997 to 1998. The bags were made of cellopane paper, cotton,screen mesh, newspaper and kraft paper respectively. The results showed that the treatments with cellophane paper or cotton bags hastened coloration by 10 days as compared with unbagged fruits, and improved the quality of colouration through increasing the phenol, flavonoid and chlorophyll, and PAL activity. The treaments with newspaper and the paper bags suppresed the accumulation of anthocyanins significantly, and also inhibited PAL activity. Effect of the treatment with screen mesh bag on coloration of fruit peel was insignificant.