Studies on the Propagation, Fruit Growth, Development, Respiratory Pattern and Antioxidant Capacity of Gac (Momordica cochinchinensis Spreng.)

• Main Authors: Jhih-Ting Ye, 葉祉廷
• Other Authors: San-Gwang Hwang
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2016
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/19652234550904892495

碩士 === 國立中興大學 === 園藝學系所 === 104 === Gac (Momordica cochinchinensis Spreng.) is a tropical plant grown in many tropical countries. The aril of gac fruit is rich in multiple nutients and that is why the gac fruit is flatteringly called the "the fruit from heaven." Up to date, the gac fruit is not widely studied, the objectives of this study were therefore to survey seed germination pattern, flowering time, fruit development and physiological changes of gac fruit, to find the suitable propagation methods of gac fruit via seed and cutting to produce a lot of gynoecious plants, and to evaluate the nutritional values of edible parts (green pulp, red pulp and aril) of gac fruit. Our results indicated that gac is a plant that has hypogeal germination and flowering during early May to late October. The fruit showed a single sigmoid growth curve. Fruit peel color changed into light yellow at 37 days after pollination and gradually turned into orange red while flesh became soft. The fruit took 7 weeks to reach horticultural maturity in summer; whereas 11 weeks were required in winter. Ethylene production and respiration rate didn’t increase during 3-8 weeks after pollination. Taken together, our results suggested that the gac fruit belongs to the non-climacteric fruits. Gac seeds immersed in 60℃water for 10 minutes didn’t exhibit significantly higher germination rate and shorter days to germination. The germination rate of seeds was lower after treatment with 12 hours of flowing water than that of the control. Furthermore, the germination rate of seeds stored for one month at room temperature (25℃) was significantly higher than that of seeds stored for 4 months at the same temperature. The germination time of seeds immersed in flowing water or 60℃ water was not significantly different from that of the control. No significant difference in germination time was observed between seeds stored for one month and 4 months at 25℃. In addition, investigation of the plant growth vigor (vine height, number of nodes, stem diameter, fresh weight and dry weight), node number of the first flower, days to flowering, and nutritional status (macronutrient, micronutrient, total soluble sugar and starch) of gac fruit indicated that no significant difference can be found between plants grown from seeds and cutting. Comparison of the nutritional values among green pulp, red pulp and aril indicated that total phenolic compounds (TPC), ascorbic acid (Vit.C), and soluble protein(SP) are the highest in aril. Ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP), free amino acid (FAA), N, Fe, Mn, Zn, and Cu concentration are the highest in green pulp. Additionally, the concentration of P, K, Ca, and Mg is the highest in red pulp .