Abstract
The purpose this work was to evaluate the influence of pre-harvest application of plant biostimulant on the quality and shelf-life of melon. For this an experiment was established in the “Coopyfrutas”, located in Rio Grande do Norte state/Brazil. The treatments consisted of a combination of factors: melon cultivars (‘Goldex’ and ‘Iracema’) and pre-harvest application of plant biostimulant, Crop Set®, (with and without). At commercial maturity, some fruit of each treatment were sampled and analyzed and the others were stored in a cold chamber at 10±2 ºC and 80±2% relative humidity. The experiment was arranged in a completely randomized split-plot design. The plots consisted of cultivars and Crop Set® application and subplots of different storage time (0, 14, 21, 28, and 35 days after harvest) with eight replications. The characteristics evaluated were length, diameter, internal cavity, external and internal appearance, weight loss, fresh firmness, soluble solids, titratable acidity, pH, SS/TA ratio, and total soluble sugars. Applications of plant biostimulant led to an increase in fruit length and diameter. It reduced fresh firmness and increased the pH of ‘Goldex’ fruit. The total soluble sugars reduced at 35 days of storage in the ‘Iracema’ fruit treated with plant biostimulant.
Highlights
Melon (Cucumis melo L.) is a vegetable of African and Asian origin, greatly appreciated and highly popular worldwide
Given the lack of studies published on the effect of the use of plant stimulant on the features and storage of melon fruit, the aim of this study was to evaluate the influence of pre-harvest application of the plant biostimulant Crop Set® on the quality and storage of yellow melon ‘Goldex’ and ‘Iracema’
During fruit storage after harvest, time had an isolated effect on the characteristics weight loss, external appearance, soluble solids and pH
Summary
Melon (Cucumis melo L.) is a vegetable of African and Asian origin, greatly appreciated and highly popular worldwide. The economic importance of the crop has stimulated the intensification of research on procedures pre-harvest (Deng et al, 2013; Hayata et al, 2000), physiology, biochemistry (Moing et al, 2011; Obando-Ulloa et al, 2009) and post-harvest storage of melon (Liu et al, 2004; Tomaz et al, 2009; Zhang et al, 2017) In this regard, the use of plant growth regulators can modify the morphological and physiological processes in the fruit (Taiz & Zeiger, 2009) at concentrations far below (Davies, 2010) by affecting crop growth and development, stimulating cell division and increasing nutrient and water uptake (Shin et al, 2007)
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