Abstract

A laboratory method based on modifications of two earlier techniques is described. The juice samples were from single-plant selections from progenies raised in the breeding programme at the institute. Ascorbic acid contents of 59 pasteurized samples stored for a year ranged from 4.2 to 150.2 mg/100 ml with only three containing more than 100 mg/100 ml. The mean content was only 31.6 and the method is not recommended for screening samples with a narrow range and generally low contents of ascorbic acid. Ascorbic acid contents of 41 samples from freshly harvested fruits, studied within three weeks of harvesting, ranged from 62.6 to 300 mg/100 ml with a mean of 214. The colorimetric method described proved highly successful when applied to this batch.