• Horticultural Science & Technology
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.479-485
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• 2015

This study was conducted to study the factors inducing micro-cracking and determine proper practices to reduce its occurrence in 'Mansoo' pear fruits. Micro-cracking was observed on ripe fruits. Occurrence of micro-cracking was closely related to sun duration time in August. Micro-cracking occurred severely with shorter sun duration, but weakly with longer sun duration and continuous sunlight. Micro-cracking fruits occurred more frequently in trees with a pergola training system than in those with Y-trellis, but there was no difference between the irrigated and non-irrigated groups. While no micro-cracking was observed without fruit bagging, micro-cracking occurred in fruits with black and yellow outer paper bagging at rates of 62.2 and 17.3%, respectively. Our results suggest that the light condition was the most important cause of micro-cracking because the occurrence of micro-cracking in 'Mansoo' fruits was affected by factors including sun duration, trellis system and fruit bag color. We suggested that micro-cracking could be reduced in 'Mansoo' fruit by optimizing the light conditions with the proper trellis system, bagging color and summer pruning.