Physiological and Biochemical Methods Used in the Study of Fruitlet Abscission in Areca catechu

Fruitlet abscission is a bottleneck of the Areca catechu industry. A series of physiological and biochemical changes, such as morphological variations, cell architecture reconstruction, and increasing or decreasing enzymatic activity, occur during fruitlet abscission. There are species specificities among various plants concerning methods applied in abscission study. In this chapter, we describe the main methods adopted in the study focused on A. catechu fruitlet abscission, including microscopic observation, biochemical analysis, and abscission statistics. These methods are used to explore the physiological process and regulatory mechanism of fruitlet abscission in this industrial species.