COMMODITY EVALUATION OF APPLES TREATED WITH 1–METHYLCYCLOPROPENE AFTER HARVEST

Abstract

The thesis being presented is study on marketable quality of early winter apple fruits cultivars ‘Calville’ and ‘Spartan’ during refrigerated storage under the condition of their post-harvest treatment with 1-methylcyclopropene (1-MCP). The suppression of apple’s ripening after harvest is necessary to reduce the losses of marketable fruit quality during storage and receive a high economic effect from the sale of product. SmartFresh technology, based on inhibition of ethylene due to the effect of 1-methylcyclopropene (1-MCP), use to improve the quality of the majority of apple’s cultivars. The post–harvest application of 1-MCP effectively restrains the development of physiological disorders such as superficial scald and fruit rot, but sometimes may increase susceptibility to flesh browning, especially stored during 6 or more months. Research objects were early-winter apple cultivars ‘Calville’ and ‘Spartan’, treated after harvest with 1-MCP (‘SmartFreshTM’ 0,068 g·m-3) for 24 h at 5 °C, during storage at 3±1 °C and relative humidity 85–90 % for two, three, four, five and six months (non-treated fruits – control). The value of weight loss, superficial scald, fruit rot and core browning damage carried by weighing of respective factions of fruits. Data are means of three replicates and expressed as a percentage of fruit’s weight before storage. There was a significant increase in more than two times, compared to the control, the yield of standard products and, in particular, higher and first grades of 1-MCP treated fruits after six months of storage in combination with a significant decrease in technical defect, which has a decisive impact on expected proceeds and the level of profitability of storage. The weight losses of both early-winter apple cultivars increased during storage with not-substantial difference between the both treated with 1-MCP and control fruits. During storage standard product fraction of 1-MCP treated fruits both cultivars decreased quadratically with high correlation coefficients. After six months of storage control apples cv. ‘Calville’ had most fruits with superficial scald, core browning and rot, and cv. ‘Spartan’ – with core browning and rot, while the damage product of 1-MCP treated apples consisted mainly of rotting fruits. Consequently, post-harvest treatment of apple fruits with ethylene inhibitor 1-MCP increased the marketable quality and efficiency of the storing of early–winter apple cultivars ‘Calville’ and ‘Spartan’, reducing the intensity of physiological disorder’s and rot’s damage

Keywords

• apples
• standard products
• physiological disorders
• technical defect
• weight loss
• core browning
• flesh browning
• rot