Abstract
Huangguan pear (Pyrus bretschneideri Rehd cv. Huangguan) is a pear cultivar that rapidly developed in China. However, rapid postharvest browning appearing in fruit peel and core during storage and shelf life pose a challenge for their marketing. The potential for low temperature conditioning (LTC) treatment to inhibit peel browning and improve quality of Huangguan pears in storage and shelf life was investigated. Pears were treated at 8℃ - 9℃ for 1, 3, 6 and 9 d, respectively, physiological indexes, including peel and core browning, core breakdown, malondialdehyde (MDA) content and ethanol content were determined and quality in storage period and shelf life was evaluated in this paper. LTC treatment alleviated peel browning and core browning either in storage or shelf life remarkably; it also delayed the decline of firmness, total soluble solids and titratable acidity in storage to some extent, inhibited ethanol and MDA content both in storage and shelf life effectively and maintained juiciness and crispness of pear fruit in shelf life. These results showed that LTC can serve as an important tool for the regulation of Huangguan pears external and internal quality in storage and shelf life with economic benefits and LTC treatment for 6 d was the optimum condition in the present study.
Highlights
Browning area was recorded as a percentage of the fruit surface and scored on a 4-point scale (0, no browning; 1, browning area was less than 10%; 2, browning area was ranged in 10% - 20%; 3, browning area was ranged in 20% - 40%; 4, browning area was more than 40%); the amount and severity of pear peel browning was expressed by an index, which was calculated by the following formula: peel browning index = ∑
The peel browning after low temperature conditioning (LTC) treatment during storage period was shown in Figure 1 and Figure 2
Sensory quality of pears was maintained for control and LTC treatment and no significant different was found between them (P < 0.05)
Summary
To avoid occurrence of postharvest peel browning, slow cooling was often used in commercially This method was not good for the quality maintenance, and resulted in high rot index and stem shriveling. Low temperature conditioning prior to cold disinfestations of “Hass” avocado can effectively eliminate skin damage and improve internal quality [10] [11]. A similar response was found in litchi after low temperature conditioning treatment, which improved subsequent storage behavior and increased the shelf life of fruits after storage [12]. The effects of LTC on external peel browning and internal quality of Huangguan pears in storage and subsequent shelf life behavior were studied in this paper
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