By some reason Youtube decided to recommend me some mouldy videos, and one of those I saw a fruit getting ripened whilst fully exposed to the outside environment (e.g. left outside a fridge.)
After a while, the fruit rotted and mould started to form, and that made me wonder;
Why is mould visible only/mostly after rotting and why mould isn’t as predominant or even none existent when the fruit is still developing, even though the fruit is fully exposed to the outside world. Aren’t the conditions already optimal for mould to grow regardless?
In: Chemistry
Something that I think the other comments are missing is the amount of sugar in the fruit. Fruits that are separated from the plant are still alive – that’s why they continue to ripen. What ripening *is*, though, is turning big, complex sugars that are hard to digest into simple sugars, chiefly fructose. Mold *can* digest the big sugars, but it’s much much easier to digest the simple sugars.
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