Effects of Post-Harvest UV-C and Hot Water Treatments on Quality Attributes of ‘0900 Ziraat’ Cherries throughout the Cold Storage in Modified Atmosphere Packages

Abstract

In this study, effects of post-harvest UV-C, Hot Water and UV-C + Hot Water treatments on quality attributes and especially on phenolics of ‘0900 Ziraat’ cherries grown under Mersin Taurus Mountains conditions throughout the cold storage were investigated. For this purpose, before to store, cherry fruits were subjected to UV-C treatments for 5 minutes and Hot Water treatments at 50 °C for 1 minute. The fruits harvested at full-ripe period were then stored in modified atmosphere packages (MAP) (Xtend®) for 20 days at 0 oC temperature and 90±5% relative humidity. Throughout the storage period, weight loss, skin color, suspended solids content, titratable acidity, total phenolics and antioxidant analyses were performed in every 4th day of storage (0, 4, 8, 12, 16 and 20th days).Effects of experimental treatments on phenolics were investigated in detail. Present findings revealed that UV-C + Hot Water treatments without any chemicals better preserved the quality attributes and significantly restricted the losses in protocatechic acid, chlorogenic acid and q-coumaric acid contents.