High-res Honeycrisp

摘要

The idea of sending sick apples for a CT scan sounds a little far-fetched, but insights from the resulting imagery is helping researchers find solutions for one of the industry's most vexing disorders: bitter pit in Honeycrisp. Using a particle accelerator (really!) at the Advanced Light Source synchrotron at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab in Berkeley, California, that harnesses electrons traveling near the speed of light to conduct high resolution scans of apples, physiologist Lee Kalcsits was able to see that the cell structure of Honeycrisp with bitter pit is very different than healthy fruit and that, compared to other apple varieties, there are structural reasons why Honeycrisp is more at risk of developing the disorder.