Analytic studies in plant respiration. II.—The respiration of apples in nitrogen and its relation to respiration in air

Abstract

The previous paper of this series contains a study of the respiration of a set of 21 apples brought from cold storage at 2·5°C. and examined in the laboratory at 22°C. The complex phenomena presented by the respiration while in a current of ordinary air were alone dealt with in that paper, but these same individual apples were also investigated in nitrogen and in various percentages of oxygen. In the present paper the respiration data obtained in nitrogen are to be examined, while a subsequent paper will take up the phenomena presented in concentrations of oxygen. The complexities of CO₂-production in nitrogen are no less than those already studied in air, though they bring us into a new field in which the oxidation factor is excluded. The behaviour of a number of individual apples alternately in air and nitrogen is recorded by long series of continuous observations, and these call for detailed analysis.