Fruit

No fresh fruit has been subjected to more technological changes in modern times than fruit. Disease-resistant varieties of familiar fruits are being developed constantly, to give a high yield over a long season, to withstand transportation and to keep well. Many of these new fruits are hybrids, crossbred from cultivated or natural parent plants, while others, called cultivars (meaning cultivated varieties), are developed under controlled conditions in greenhouses or on farms.

Today, fruit growth can be managed so that an entire crop reaches the same size and maturity at a given moment. Modern storage methods allow most fruit to be held in more or less static condition until the ripening process is “switched on”, often through the stimulus of ethylene gas, which is already produced by fruit under natural ripening conditions. In theory, fruit should reach the market in a perfectly ripe condition, despite, in some cases, having been separated from the tree or vine long before.