Effects of Forchlorofenuron (CPPU) treatment on fruit properties in the fruit of common guava

The common guava is a small tree from Myrtacaeae family which is cultivated for its fruits. Researches have explored new methods to promote fruit yields and quality of crops. Application of Forchlorofenuron or CPPU (with Molecular Formula: C h CIN O) improves the fruit size as well 12 10 3 as its quality, but there has not been an investigation evaluating its effects on common guava fruit under ield conditions. This research was performed to study the effects of different doses of CPPU (0, 10, 20 and 40 mg L-1) on common guava fruit size and quality characteristics under ield condi- tions. Analysis of variance and LSD (least signiicant differences) mean compression indicated that total soluble solids, total acidity, ascorbic acid or vitamin C, fruit irmness, phenolics, 1,1-Diphenyl- 2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPh), polygalacturonase, pectin methyl esterase and ethylene were signiicantly different in most traits and CPPU-40 produced high means. The principal components (PC) analysis explained 95% of the total variation and the irst two principal components (PC1 and PC2) explained 78% and 17% of the total variation, respectively. According to biplot, CPPU-40 had the highest val- ues for all of the measured traits except DPPh, ethylene and polygalacturonase. The most prominent relations by biplot were a strong positive correlation among phenolics, fruit irmness, total acidity, total soluble solids and ascorbic acid as indicated by the small obtuse angles between their vectors. The measured traits were grouped into two clusters and cutoff point veriied via Wilks’ lambda statistics. Cluster I consisted of three traits (ascorbic acid or vitamin C, fruit irmness and ethylene) while cluster II included total soluble solids. Findings of this study suggest that CPPU can be used as an effective growth regulator to improve the size and quality of common guava fruit.