Crecimiento y desarrollo del fruto de lulo (Solanum quitoense Lam.) en el municipio de San Antonio del Tequendama (Colombia)

In the municipality of San Antonio del Tequendama (Cundimarca, Colombia) is the planting of lulo cultivation is being encouraged. However, many aspects of the physiology and management of the species under these ecological conditions are not known. The aim of this research was to study the growth and development of the lulo fruit cultivar Septentrionale. Flowers were tagged during anthesis and nine sampling of fruits from the middle third of the plants every 20 days were made. In each sample, the following variables were determined: fruit fresh and dry mass, firmness, total soluble solids, total titratable acidity and respiratory intensity. At 180 days after anthesis (DAA) the fruits reached harvest maturity with intense orange color and an average mass of 209 g. The behavior of the fruit fresh mass and dry mass was sigmoidal simple. The total titratable acidity and total soluble solids increased with fruit development, while the respiratory rate decreased; firmness increased to 80 DAA and then decreased until harvest. The absolute growth rate increases rapidly and reached its peak at 129 DAA.