Amelioration of watercore in 'Fuji' apple viewed by two- and three-dimensional nuclear magnetic resonance imaging

Non-invasive measurements relating to the curing of watercore in 'Fuji' apples during storage were made over two seasons by serial analysis of multi-slice proton magnetic resonance images. The proportion of watercore-affected tissue decreased linearly with time during storage (20 weeks, 0°C), the length of time taken for symptoms to disappear depending on the intensity of the disorder at commercial harvest. Percent water-soaked tissue was greatest in centrally-located images slices (both transverse and longitudinal) and declined towards the fruit's extremities. Difference between the distribution of affected tissue in basal and distal sections of the fruit was seasonally-dependent; side-to-side comparisons, on the other hand, were essentially radially symmetric about the stem axis. Voxel seeding and volume rendering techniques applied to 3-D data sets of entire fruit, were also used to investigate the distribution of water-soaked tissues in three dimensional space.