Cold Storage Influences Postharvest Chilling Injury and Quality of Peach Fruits

Abstract

Peach (Prunus persica L.) fruits exhibit limited postharvest shelf and storage life due to rapid softening. Therefore, in the present study effect of cold storage was investigated on postharvest chilling injury (CI) and fruit quality during ripening following cold storage on five peach cultivars including ‘Peach Select No. 3’ (PS-3), ‘Florida Gold’ (FG) and ‘Florida King’ (FK) as early season maturing, and ‘Indian Blood’ (IB) and ‘Maria Delezia’ (MD) as late season maturing cultivars. Peach fruits harvested at commercial maturity were ripened at ambient conditions following cold storage for 0, 10 and 20 days at 0±1 °C with 80±5% RH. Data regarding peach fruit quality parameters and incidence of CI were recorded at fully ripe eating soft stage. Results indicated that apart from the cultivars, fruit weight loss, levels of soluble solid content (SSC) and sugars increased as the storage period was progressed. However, fruit firmness, titratable acidity (TA), and ascorbic acid content significantly reduced during cold storage. Among early season maturing peach cultivars, fruits of ‘FG’ and among late season maturing peach cultivars, fruits of ‘MD’ showed better postharvest shelf life and fruit quality during ripening following cold storage. The highest SSC and SSC: TA ratio were observed in ‘FG’ peach fruits; however, these fruits exhibited 50% and 75% CI after 10 and 20 days of cold storage, respectively. During first 10 days of cold storage, ‘PS-3’ peach fruits showed better taste with higher fruit firmness and ascorbic acid content, however, later on the highest level of CI was observed in these fruits. Among all the tested peach cultivars, the ‘IB’ peach fruits showed higher fruit firmness, lower weight loss, as well as acceptable biochemical fruit quality (SSC, SSC; TA, ascorbic acid content, total sugars) during 20 days of cold storage without showing any symptoms of CI.