STUDIES ON INFLUENCE OF HARVEST TIME,PROCESSING METHODS AND ORIGINAL PLANTS ON QUALITY OF FRUCTUS MUME BY METHOD OF MULTIV ARIATE AND MONOVARIATE ANALYSIS OF VARIANCE

In order to assess the quality of Fructus mume,several items were set up,such as ratio of flesh ,pH value,total free acidity ,ratio of citric acid content to malic acid content , reducing sugar content,etc.The items were analysed in Fructus mume of different harvest times,different pro-cessing methods or different plant orig1ns.The results which dealt with multivariate and monovariate analysis of variance,showed that the harvest time,processing method and plant origin influenced the quality of Fructus mume,respectively.It was found that the optimum harvest time was both seed and flesh mature period,the best processing methed was the traditional way of smoking with common wood as fuel,and the quality of Fructus mume originated from cultivarieties of Armeniaca mume Sieb.was better than that from the other 3 varieties.But it is suggested that the 3 varieties can be further explofted.