AgriFocus African Markets

Top Menu

  • Advertise
  • Horticulture
  • Aquaculture
  • Crops
  • Livestock
  • Machinery
  • Technology
  • Directory
  • subscribe

Main Menu

  • Home
  • International News
  • Local News
  • Agribusiness
  • Events
  • Magazine
  • Advertise
  • Contact Us
Sign in / Join

Login

Welcome! Login in to your account
Lost your password?
Register

Lost Password

Back to login

Register

Back to login
  • Advertise
  • Horticulture
  • Aquaculture
  • Crops
  • Livestock
  • Machinery
  • Technology
  • Directory
  • subscribe

logo

Header Banner

AgriFocus African Markets

  • Home
  • International News
  • Local News
  • Agribusiness
  • Events
  • Magazine
  • Advertise
  • Contact Us
  • Agribusiness Confidence Index declines in Q4 of 2019

  • South Africa is missing out on fresh fruit export growth. What it needs to do

  • TOMRA Sorting Food: MAKING THE FUTURE OF FOOD SUSTAINABLE

  • Two chutney recipes as festive stocking fillers.

  • South African Police Service to reclassify abalone poaching as serious priority crime

  • BMG’s Ammeraal Beltech Rapplon folder gluer belts meet FDA and EC standards for contact with foodstuffs

  • Ceremony in Addis Ababa celebrates the appointment of Wereta International Business PLC as Case IH distributor for Ethiopia

  • Vegetable Gardening: 25 Tips & Tricks

  • WATCH: Agritech Africa 2020

  • Technology and Innovation Will Help Speed Up Removal of Land Sector Corruption in Africa

Horticulture
Home›Horticulture›Curious Kids: what happens when fruit gets ripe?

Curious Kids: what happens when fruit gets ripe?

By Brandon Moss
June 28, 2019
140
0
Share:

When the seeds are ready, the fruit become ripe and good-looking, making animals keen to eat them.

When the fruit are ripe they become brightly coloured. Apples, strawberries and peaches become red, bananas become yellow and, of course, oranges become orange.

Next time you go the supermarket, look at the beautiful colours of the fruit in there and see how many different colours you can find.

Softer, sweeter and nicer to smell

At the same time as fruit change colour, they also become soft. This is because fruit are made from many tiny things called cells.

In plants, each cell has a wall. There is stuff in the cells’ walls that changes to make the fruit soft, and it is this softening that makes them juicy.

Each of these boxes is a cell in an onion. And each cell is separated by a cell wall. UAF Center for Distance Education/flickr, CC BY

I bet the thing you most like about fruit is that they are sweet and yummy to eat. When the fruits ripen, the plant cleverly removes all of the bad-tasting stuff from the fruit and replaces them with sugars. That, of course, makes the fruit sweet and nice to eat.

The last thing that changes when fruit ripen is that they make stuff that helps them smell really nice, which makes animals and people want to eat them.

Different fruits have different stuff in them that makes them smell the way they do. That is why we can tell a pear from a strawberry, just by smell alone.

A tricky gas called ethylene

These changes that happen when fruit ripen (the change in colour, smell, sweetness and softness) all happen at the same time.

To make this happen, many fruit use another special thing called ethylene. This ethylene is helpful.

The bananas you eat come from farms in Queensland. They are picked when they are green and a bit hard. They are picked before they are ripe so they don’t get damaged while they are being taken to shops near your house in Melbourne.

When they arrive in Melbourne, the people in charge of those green bananas will put some ethylene gas near them to ripen them up. Then they are put in shops so we can buy them when they are yellow and ripe to eat.

You can see the difference between unripe bananas (left) and ripe bananas (right) cryptographer/shutterstock

The most important thing about all fruits is that they are very good for us.

The sugars inside them are a great way to get energy that helps us work and play all day.

They are also full of vitamins that help us become big and strong. So it’s important that we eat lots of fruit. But don’t forget your veggies, as they are also very good for us!

Previous Article

South Africa: Horticulture boosts employment in agricultural ...

Next Article

Scottish fruit farm named as third Strategic ...

0
Shares
  • 0
  • +
  • 0
  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

Brandon Moss

Related articles More from author

  • Horticulture

    Two chutney recipes as festive stocking fillers.

    December 5, 2019
    By Brandon Moss
  • Horticulture

    Child labour: 108 million children work in agriculture

    June 24, 2019
    By Brandon Moss
  • Horticulture

    Vegetable Gardening: 25 Tips & Tricks

    November 29, 2019
    By Brandon Moss
  • Horticulture

    Farm on the stock market, and increase your profits

    June 10, 2019
    By Brandon Moss
  • Horticulture

    South Africa is missing out on fresh fruit export growth. What it needs to do

    December 9, 2019
    By Brandon Moss
  • Horticulture

    Scottish fruit farm named as third Strategic SmartHort Centre

    July 1, 2019
    By Brandon Moss

Leave a reply Cancel reply

You may be interested in

  • Agribusiness

    Agribusiness Confidence Index declines in Q4 of 2019

  • International News

    Wool market increases after slight decline

  • Local News

    Cut the greenwash. Get the facts straight about paper and recycling

Timeline

  • December 9, 2019

    Agribusiness Confidence Index declines in Q4 of 2019

  • December 9, 2019

    South Africa is missing out on fresh fruit export growth. What it needs to do

  • December 5, 2019

    TOMRA Sorting Food: MAKING THE FUTURE OF FOOD SUSTAINABLE

  • December 5, 2019

    Two chutney recipes as festive stocking fillers.

  • December 3, 2019

    South African Police Service to reclassify abalone poaching as serious priority crime

Find us on Facebook

Latest News

  • Agribusiness Confidence Index declines in Q4 of 2019
  • South Africa is missing out on fresh fruit export growth. What it needs to do
  • TOMRA Sorting Food: MAKING THE FUTURE OF FOOD SUSTAINABLE
  • Two chutney recipes as festive stocking fillers.
  • South African Police Service to reclassify abalone poaching as serious priority crime

Archives

Image Galary

    The Agrifocus African Markets Magazine and the www.agrifocusafrica.com Online Portal are registered and published under Lothbrok Media, A devision of The Lothbrok Group. All Rights Reserved. www.lothbrokmedia.com

    • Recent

    • Popular

    • Comments

    • Agribusiness Confidence Index declines in Q4 of 2019

      By Brandon Moss
      December 9, 2019
    • South Africa is missing out on fresh fruit export growth. What it needs to do

      By Brandon Moss
      December 9, 2019
    • TOMRA Sorting Food: MAKING THE FUTURE OF FOOD SUSTAINABLE

      By Brandon Moss
      December 5, 2019
    • Two chutney recipes as festive stocking fillers.

      By Brandon Moss
      December 5, 2019
    • Officials, Plantation Owners, Tech Companies and Funding Agencies to Attend 6th Commercial Farm Africa in ...

      By Brandon Moss
      September 11, 2019
    • EU-African task force proposes new way ahead for African rural development

      By Brandon Moss
      June 10, 2015
    • Kenya moves closer to goal of 100% renewable energy generation by 2030

      By Brandon Moss
      July 29, 2019
    • Oak Valley Farm to equality court

      By Brandon Moss
      July 4, 2019
    • ctshirts offer code
      on
      December 5, 2019

      Officials, Plantation Owners, Tech Companies and Funding Agencies to Attend 6th Commercial Farm Africa in Nairobi

      Thanks to my father ...
    • t shirt 1 terre haute
      on
      December 5, 2019

      Officials, Plantation Owners, Tech Companies and Funding Agencies to Attend 6th Commercial Farm Africa in Nairobi

      Hey there! I could ...
    • ugly christmas sweater on sale
      on
      December 5, 2019

      Officials, Plantation Owners, Tech Companies and Funding Agencies to Attend 6th Commercial Farm Africa in Nairobi

      Hello outstanding website! Does ...
    • ugly christmas sweater hoodie
      on
      December 5, 2019

      Officials, Plantation Owners, Tech Companies and Funding Agencies to Attend 6th Commercial Farm Africa in Nairobi

      Hello there! This is ...

    Contact Us

    Head Office
    5 The Ferns, 364 Pretoria Avenue, Randburg, South Africa, 2194

    Tell : +27 67 212 7565
    Fax: 086 678 6956
    www.lothbrokmedia.com

    Sales and Advertising
    Dowellcs@lothbrokmedia.com
    Brandonm@Agrifocusafrica.com

    Accounts
    Info@lothbrokmedia.com

    Zambia
    33 Malata Road, Madras,Lusaka, Zambia 3928Tell:+ 26 76 136 3654
    Email Info
    Info@agrifocusafrica.com

     

    • Privacy Policy
    © Copyright www.agrifocusafrica.com. All rights reserved.