Usually, studies on the development of mango fruits are made by destructive methods, which modify the physiologic system feeding the remaining fruits, due to alterations in the source and sink relationship. The objective of the work was to study the relationship among growth variables, in order to establish a non-destructive method capable of defining fruit development stages. The experiment was carried out in a commercial orchard at the FRUNORTE farm, in Assu-RN. The fruits were harvested from 200 trees and had their fresh (FM) and dry matter (DM) weights, volume, and dorsal, ventral and longitudinal diameters evaluated at 32, 46, 60, 74, 82, 89, 96, and 103 days after full bloom. The products of the longitudinal, ventral and dorsal diameters were used as a new variable. Correlation analyses showed a high coefficient regarding the variables FM and volume. High correlation coefficients were also found between FM and volume against product of diameters. A correlation coefficient (r) of 0,94 was found between DM and the product of diameters. Therefore, it can be concluded that during the development of fruit, FM and FD could be estimated through non-destructives methods from determination of volume or the product of the fruit diameters.
Mangífera indica L.; development; non-destructive method