The effect of seasonality, maturity and colour treatments on internal browning in ‘Pink Lady’ apples.
Brown G.S., Schimanski L. J., Jennings D.
5th International Postharvest Symposium . Volume of Abstract . Verona, Italy 6-11 June 2004, p.47
2004
บทคัดย่อ
The effect of seasonality, maturity and colour treatments on internal browning in ‘Pink Lady’ apples.
Since 2000, internal browning has been observed in controlled atmosphere stored’ Pink Lady’ apples origination from Tasmania.This problem was not apparent in fruit immediately after removal from controlled atmosphere, but manifested itself during transport.During the 2000 export season, several containers of fruit origination from Tasmania were condemned upon arrival in Europe due to this disorder, causing severe financial losses to growers and marketers, as well as detrimental affects on the marketing program in the UK.Internal browning is located in the outer cortex of the flesh’ the discolouration can range from a slight gray tinge to a dark brown that follows the vascular traces toward the core of the fruit.Trials over the past four years have shown that this disorder is seasonal and affected by fruit maturity.In the four years studied there has been a yearly variation from 2% to 50% incidence.Fruit maturity appears to be a fundamental factor in the occurrence of internal browning; fruit picked 3 weeks before commercial harvest have a 3 to 5 fold reduction in the incidence of internal browning.Fruit are picked over-mature to improve the red colour of the skin, due to supermarket specifications, so trials were conducted to improve fruit colour.These indicated that cincturing, summer pruning, Regalisâ and reflective cloth all improved fruit colour.They also significantly increased the incidence of internal browning’ however, cincturing had a much greater incidence of internal browning than the other treatments.Importantly, reflective cloth significantly increased colour over the other treatments without advancing maturity, therefore, reflective cloth may e used to improve fruit colour and allow the commercial harvest to be conducted 2-3 weeks earlier to minimise internal browning in Tasmanian ‘Pink Lady’ apples.