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I have a teeny refrigerator, and cut off just the crowns (see red line below) on newly bought pineapples to save space. What are the cons of this truncation? Will pineapples be less fresh?

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Source of original picture

1 Answers1

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It depends on where you cut it - if you are taking off the majority of leaves, but leaving the "fruit" intact, then it should be fine. If you are actually cutting into the fruit, then it will affect how well/long it keeps and how it matures.

Incidentally - it is much better for flavour development to keep fruit like this outside the refrigerator. Also, if you are in a warm country, you can actually cut the crown off a mature pineapple and place it in a pot and let it grow. Over time it will produce a pineapple plant and, provided you look after it enough, even produce a new pineapple fruit.

bob1
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    I'd be interested to hear what you mean by "fruit like this". Is there a kind of rule to which fruits go in the fridge and which ones don't? Or a good place to get more info on that? – EagleV_Attnam Mar 03 '20 at 21:10
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    @EagleV_Attnam I'm not an expert but did work in produce at a grocer for a few years. A "fruit like this" probably includes just about any fruit that you want/expect to continue ripening (and you aren't expecting it to go bad sitting at room temp). A good rule of thumb is to see how it's on display at a store; you'll notice actually most fruits are at ambient temps. – Zoupah Mar 04 '20 at 00:29
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    I've heard that cutting the leaves off watermelon, etc. vines in order to force the plant to concentrate its energies on ripening the fruit actually makes it worse because the leaves provide extra energy to the fruit. I wonder if leaving the leaves on a pineapple would help it to ripen? – CJ Dennis Mar 04 '20 at 00:47
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    @CJDennis That is only true if the fruit is still growing on the vine / tree, when energy is coming from external sources into the fruit. Once it is picked, the only source of energy is the fruit itself, so removing the extra foliage might help preserve it (marginally) longer. (Again though, I'm not a biologist, just using my intuition) – Zoupah Mar 04 '20 at 00:57
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    @EagleV_Attnam - I was largely meaning tropical fruits with particularly aromatic flavours. Storing these cold-sensitive fruits in the fridge results in loss of flavour and damage to the fruit. In some cases it also slows ripening, but not in all. This applies to the common fruits: bananas, pineapple, mango, papaya, tomatoes, amongst many others. – bob1 Mar 04 '20 at 01:14
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    @CJDennis There are a couple of things in play here - plants that are damaged, stressed or dying often make a last-gasp effort to produce fruit. Ripping the leaves off a vine might result in this response. Some of the melons, like watermelon (rock/cantaloupe in this category probably too) , need sun and warmth to ripen the fruit and have green skins that absorb heat and light to produce the ripe fruit. In addition removing vegetative portions of the plant may cause it to divert more energy to those parts left behind - think cultivating tomatoes by pinching out lateral buds. – bob1 Mar 04 '20 at 01:18
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    @bob1 Yes, that's the anecdotal evidence, but the scientific evidence doesn't back it up. Yes, the fruit itself uses sunlight, but experiments[citation needed - I don't have any links at the moment] have shown that more energy is transferred from the leaves to the fruit than from the rest of the plant to the leaves. This makes sense if you think about what leaves are for: one use is as "solar batteries" providing energy to the rest of the plant. In the case of tomatoes, the lateral buds would form more branches, but you still leave the existing leaves on. – CJ Dennis Mar 04 '20 at 02:38
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    Thanks for teaching me about pineapples. I didn't know about that last para. on growing pineapples from their crown. I edited my picture. I'm not "cutting into the fruit". –  Mar 04 '20 at 03:55
  • @CJDennis - yes, it is common gardening "theory" and I totally agree about the leaves being the energy source, however I think in general that when this is done that most of the leaves are retained, only those that are close to the fruit are removed, at least this is the case for grapes, I don't have much experience with melons. – bob1 Mar 04 '20 at 07:15
  • @Vast - You're welcome. That is the correct place to cut a pineapple to remove the crown without interfering with the ripening and integrity of the fruit. I often see pineapples trimmed like this in supermarkets. – bob1 Mar 04 '20 at 07:16