A Study on Harvesting Seasons and Different Fruit Sizes on 'Pan Baan Phaeo' Lime Fruit Qualities

Abstract

       ‘Pan Baan Phaeo’ is the most popular lime cultivar produced in Thailand; however, information on the quality of the fruit, and in particular on the quality off the fruit cultivated in the dry (January) and rainy (August) seasons is very limited. In this research, we therefore aimed to determine and compare the quality of limes obtained from some Talaad Thai (fruit and vegetable flea market), sampling three different fruit sizes, namely, sizes 4, 5, and 6. The results indicated that harvesting season affected the fruit length, fruit diameter, fruit weight, juice weight, fruit rind thickness, number of seeds per fruit, and the total soluble solids (TSS), and titratable acidity (TA) ratio (TSS/TA) values, all of which were higher in the dry season than in rainy season, whereas the juice content, vitamin C content, and TA were lower in the dry season. Concerning the parameters of fruit size, we found that the fruit length, fruit diameter, fruit weight, and juice weight of the Pan Baan Phaeo 4 were the highest, followed by Pan Baan Phaeo 5 and 6, but the TA and TSS increase were the highest in Pan Baan Phaeo 6, followed by Pan Baan Phaeo 5 and 4. Furthermore, there was an interaction of season and size that affected the number of segments per fruit, number of seeds per fruit, vitamin C content, TA, TSS, and TSS/TA.