Forced hot air treatment of stone fruit to inhibit the debvelopment of mealiness.
Obenland K.M., Neipp P.M.
5th International Postharvest Symposium . Volume of Abstract . Verona, Italy 6-11 June 2004, p.54
2004
บทคัดย่อ
Forced hot air treatment of stone fruit to inhibit the debvelopment of mealiness.
Conditioning stone fruit by allowing a 48-hour period of ripening at 20 °C prior to cold storage is being increasingly practiced in California as a means to enhance fruit quality following storage by reducing the incidence of mealiness and flesh browning.Conditioning, while very effective, takes a relatively long time to implement and results in fruit that are more susceptible to handling damage and decay.Treatment with forced hot air was tested as a potential alternative to this practice.Conditioned fruit (CF) or non conditioned fruit (NF) of ‘Elegant Lady’, a peach cultivar that is susceptible to becoming mealy, were treated with force hot air using a heating rate of 12 °C h-1 and a final chamber temperature of 46 °C prior to cold storage for 2 to 4 weeks at 1 °C.Following storage fruit were ripened and evaluated for mealiness by determining the percentage of free water (FW) present in the fruit.Fruit stored for 2 weeks were juicy regardless of treatment, although CF maintained an averageFW of 57.3% versus 47.2% for NF.After 3 weeks of storage NF that had not been heated had a FW values of 26.9% as compared to 49.6% for nonheated CF and had become mealy.Heating slowed the loss of FW and maintained juiciness, although 3 hours of heating or more was required to have an effect and the FW value for the NC fruit heated for 4 hours was still 7% less that that from nonheated CF.Both CF and NF had become mealy by the end of 4 weeks of storage and had low FW values.Forced hot air can effectively reduce the incidence of mealiness but further research is needed to determine if the technique could be useful commercially.