Sept. 15, 1919 Temperature in Relation to Quality of Sweetcorn 



277 



man and Arthur summarize two years' work on Stowell's Evergreen 

 stored at seven carefully controlled temperatures, namely, 0°, 5°, 10°, 

 15°, 20°, 30°, and 40° C, as follows: 



In general, It may be stated that up to 30° C. the rate of sugar loss in green com 

 is doubled for every increase of 10°. This applies to both total sugars and' sucrose. 

 It should be noted, however, that between 0° and 10° the temperature coefficient 

 for sucrose is considerably greater than 2. 



Before the conclusions of Appleman and Arthur were available, the 

 writers made a few tests to determine whether temperature influenced the 

 rate of sugar loss in sweetcorn. Their results agree closely with his, but 

 since the work was done on another variety grown at a considerable dis- 

 tance the data secured may still be of sufficient interest to warrant pub- 

 lication. Freshly picked ears of Early Bantam corn in edible condition 

 were split lengthwise. One half was placed in a small refrigerator which 

 maintained a temperature of approximately 10° C. and the other half 

 placed in a box at room temperature, about 20°. Determinations made 

 at the end of 26 to 30 hours showed uniformly a lower sugar content in 

 the half kept at the higher temperature. In most cases the ears were 

 too small to make three satisfactory samples, so no data are available for 

 the original sugar content of the ears used. The freshly picked ears listed 

 in Table I were, however, of the same variety, grown in the same plot, 

 and picked at the same stage of maturity as those shown in Table II; 

 and if the ears used in the keeping test had about the same average sugar 

 content as those in Table I (5.38 per cent of wet weight) then the halves 

 kept at 20° lost, during the first day after picking, more than twice as 

 much sugar {2,.2)(> per cent) as the halves kept at 10° (1.41 per cent). 



Table II. — Total sugars in Golden Bantam corn in edible condition, calculated as per- 

 centage of invert sugar on original -wet weight, Lewiston, Me., September, igi8 



Ear No. 



Percentage of 

 sugar remain- 

 ing in half 

 stored at 20° C. 



Percentage of 

 sugar raniain- 



ingin half 

 stored at io° C. 



Further evidence that the rate of vital activities of green sweetcorn 

 varies with temperature is afforded by tests of the rate of respiration. 

 The curv^es of respiratory intensity of sweetcorn during storage published 

 by Appleman (j, p. 20 j) show that the rate of respiration is very high 

 during the first day after the corn is pulled from the stalk but falls off 

 rapidly with storage. They clearly show also that throughout a storage 



