Bitter pit

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Bitter pit is a physiological disorder believed to be induced by calcium deficiency in apple fruit. The incidence of bitter pit usually occurs during storage, but in some cases it can also develop at harvest. This disorder has been studied for more than a hundred years and many approaches have been attempted to explain bitter pit development, but no one completely succeeded. The fact that total calcium in the fruit is not able to accurately predict bitter pit incidence has been puzzled many scientists for a long time. The high correlation and no accuracy between calcium and bitter pit make the development of this disorder one of the most complex and challenging mechanism present in plants. Two important factors possibly involved in bitter pit development are calcium accumulation in the fruit during growth and development and calcium metabolism in the fruit tissue during storage. Besides a long time of research spent on bitter pit, it seems that there are more questions than answer. Why some cultivars are able to translocate more calcium to the fruit? Why fruits in the same cultivar that have the same level of calcium and other nutrients (N, K, Mg²⁺) have different incidence of bitter pit? Why pitted fruits have regions without bitter pit?...(All this may lead to a nice and long discussion!).