Six year-old Japanese pear (Pyrus seratina Reheder cv. Kosui) trees grafted on P. serotina cv. Nihonyamanashi were grown in containers filled with Granite Regosol under glasshouse conditions. At different stages of fruit growth, pear trees were exposed to an elevated CO 2 concentration (130 Pa CO 2 ) along with a control (35 Pa CO 2 ). For one group of plants, CO 2 enrichment was applied for 79 d from 52 d after full bloom (DAB) to fruit maturity (long-term CO 2 enrichment) and for another group the same treatment was applied for 35 d from 96 DAB to fruit maturity (short-term CO 2 enrichment). The effects of the elevated CO 2 concentration on vegetative growth, mineral contents, and fruit production and quality were examined. Long-term CO 2 enrichment enhanced vegetative growth, without any significant effect on the mineral contents in either flower bud or fruit except for a remarkable increase in the K content. Long-term CO 2 enrichment increased the fruit size and fresh weight, but had no significant effect on the fruit quality. On the other hand, the short-term CO 2 enrichment did not induce any significant change in the fruit size but increased the fruit sugar concentration. Along with the reduction of the sorbitol concentration in fruit, the fructose and sucrose concentrations increased and these changes occurred earlier at elevated CO 2 than at ambient CO2 concentrations. From these results, we concluded that the effect of CO 2 enrichment on fruit growth varies depending upon the growth stages of fruit: during the initial and fruitlet stages when fruit expansion occurs, CO 2 enrichment increases the fruit size, whereas, during maturation when fruit expansion has slowed down and sugar accumulation in fruit is active, it increases the fruit sugar concentration.Key Words: carbon dioxide enrichment, fruit growth, fruit quality, growth stage, Japanese pear.Cultural management of fruit trees under plastic house or glasshouse conditions to improve the fruit quality and to obtain maturation of earlier fruit has become a common practice. Under such cultural conditions, environmental factors including CO 2 concentra- tion, temperature, water status in soil, etc. may affect vegetative and fruit growth as well as fruit quality. Although numerous researchers have studied the effect of CO 2 enrichment on fruit production, the effect on fruit quality is not well documented.CO 2 enrichment enhances photosynthesis and leads to a higher biomass production and economic yield in C 3 plants (Kimball 1983;Bowes 1993). The response of the photosynthetic activity to CO 2 enrichment differs between herbaceous plants and tree species. In the former, initial stimulation of photosynthesis by short-term CO 2 enrichment decreases or disappears during long-term CO 2 enrichment (Peet 1984;Masuda et al. 1989;Bowes 1993;Makino 1994). However, no such effect on the regulation of photosynthesis has been observed in trees Idso and Kimball 1992). Besides photosynthesis, mineral supply, and sink activity are assumed to be involved in the differ...