Harvest maturity highly affects fruit quality attributes of ethylene-treated 'autumn sense' hardy kiwifruit

Optimal harvest date is an important quality parameter for hardy kiwifruit. We, therefore, examined the ideal harvest date to obtain high-quality ripe "Autumn sense" hardy kiwifruit. The fruit was harvested at four different harvest maturity stages [6.2%, 7.1%, 8.1%, and 9.1% average soluble solids content (SSC); H1, H2, H3, and H4, respectively], then treated with exogenous ethylene at ambient temperature, to examine the quality of the ripening fruit. The four harvest maturity stages differed significantly in firmness, SSC, titratable acidity (TA), and SSC/TA ratio, both in freshly harvested and ripe hardy kiwifruit (p