Abstract
Commercial operations use low‐temperature conditioning of citrus fruits to reduce the incidence of chilling injury (CI) during cold storage and quarantine treatments. Rio Red grapefruits (Citrus paradisi Macf) were stored for 12 weeks at 11°C or 5°C; an additional set was temperature conditioned at 16°C for 7 days before storing at 5°C (CD). Every 3 weeks, samples were assessed for chilling injury (CI) and health‐promoting compounds such as ascorbic acid, carotenoids, limonoids, flavonoids, and furocoumarins. Low‐temperature conditioning significantly reduced CI but did not affect the total soluble solids, acidity, and ripening ratio. After 12 weeks of storage, grapefruits showed no significant differences in lycopene, narirutin, poncirin, furocoumarins, and radical scavenging activity in all the three treatments. Limonin was significantly higher (p < .05) in CD fruits, nomilin was significantly higher in fruits stored at 11°C, whereas fruits stored at 5°C had lower levels of naringin, neohesperidin, and didymin after 12 weeks of storage. Low‐temperature conditioning treatment helped fruits to retain similar or higher levels of most of the health‐promoting compounds by the end of storage period while maintaining better quality than the nonconditioned fruits.
Highlights
The Mexican fruit fly (Anastrepha ludens, Loew) is a quarantine pest of citrus, and lays eggs inside the fruit
This study investigated the influence of cold storage and low-temperature conditioning on levels of health-promoting compounds in Rio Red grapefruit, examining the levels of ascorbic acid, carotenoids, limonoids, flavonoids, furocoumarins, total phenolics, and radical scavenging activity, during a 12-week storage period
We observed no significant effect of storage temperature on total soluble solids (Table 1), which remained constant in all three treatments throughout the storage period
Summary
The Mexican fruit fly (Anastrepha ludens, Loew) is a quarantine pest of citrus, and lays eggs inside the fruit. Several studies on low-temperature conditioning treatment effect on molecular mechanisms involved in chilling tolerance have been conducted (Maul et al, 2008; Sapitnitskaya et al, 2006). The effect of low-temperature conditioning on Rio Red grapefruit phytochemicals present in juice vesicles has not been investigated. Studies on the effect of temperature and storage period on the health-promoting compounds in the juice vesicles, as well as on the maintenance of quality of grapefruit will provide key information for maintaining phytochemical contents. This study investigated the influence of cold storage and low-temperature conditioning on levels of health-promoting compounds in Rio Red grapefruit, examining the levels of ascorbic acid, carotenoids, limonoids, flavonoids, furocoumarins, total phenolics, and radical scavenging activity, during a 12-week storage period
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