Abstract
Consumers are more disposed towards paying price premiums for sustainable food products. This fact is especially important for products with a PDO (Protected Designation of Origin) label, such as the high-acidity apple cultivar ‘Reinette du Canada’. However, ‘Reinette du Canada’ apple fruit is affected by two of the main post-harvest disorders in apple cultivars, bitter pit and senescent breakdown. As a means to achieve sustainable production of this high-quality apple cultivar, the effect of a sustainable preharvest technique, summer pruning, in combination with a zero-residue postharvest treatment allowed in organic farming on calcium-related disorders and quality in global terms in this PDO-labelled apple cultivar was assessed during storage. The combination of the two sustainable practices was an effective tool in diminishing senescent breakdown from 43% to 17% and to decrease bitter pit incidence by up to 21% (from 36% to 15%) throughout storage, especially in fruit with high susceptibility to this disorder during storage. Moreover, the overall acceptability was kept high (values of more than 3 on a 5-point scale) when applying this environment-friendly sustainable horticulture practice, which will not only reduce the synthetic pesticide input in the apple agroecosystem, but also contribute to producing fruit with zero residues.
Highlights
The objective of this work was to investigate the effect of a sustainable preharvest technique, summer pruning, in combination with a zero-pesticide-residue postharvest treatment that is allowed in organic farming on postharvest disorders and fruit quality of
Sustainable practices influenced the magnesium nutrient content in Orchard 1, the environment where bitter pit was a big issue; the combination of summer pruning plus Nutropit® provided lower levels of Mg when compared to the control fruit (Table 1)
High levels of potassium and magnesium have been found in fruit tissues with calcium deficiency disorder symptoms [7,45]; the lower levels of potassium and magnesium for fruit subjected to the combination of summer pruning plus Nutropit®, especially in Orchard 1, the environment with a history of bitter pit, could be related to the lower bitter pit incidence achieved with this treatment
Summary
Fruits including apple have gained more popularity recently. They include high content of non-nutritive, nutritive, and bioactive compounds such as flavonoids, anthocyanins, phenolic acids, as well as nutritive compounds such as sugars, essential oils, carotenoids, vitamins, and minerals. ‘Reinette du Canada’ (Malus × domestica Borkh.) is an important cultivar in Spain and other southern European countries. It is valued for its flavour and resistance to bruising [4]. ‘Reinette du Canada’ are above 0.80% (malic acid) at harvest and higher than 0.65% after the storage plus ripening period, resulting in high consumer acceptance [6]. These characteristics, together with the appropriate microclimate conditions for the cultivation of apple trees in
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