INVESTIGADORES
CIVELLO Pedro Marcos
congresos y reuniones científicas
Título:
Use of combined UV-C and Heat treatments to improve postharvest life of
Autor/es:
PAN J; VICENTE AR; MARTÍNEZ GA; CIVELLO PM; CHAVES AR
Lugar:
Toronto, Canada
Reunión:
Congreso; XXVI International Horticultural Congress & Exhibition; 2002
Resumen:
Strawberry
is a rapidly decaying fruit and much of the postharvest research on strawberry
is devoted to the development of methods to improve its postharvest shelf life.
Physical treatments involving a low UV-C dose (4.6 kJ∙m-2) and heat
treatment (45 °C,
3 h in air oven) have been assayed both separately and in a combined fashion on
strawberries (Fragaria x ananassa Seascape) 70-80% surface red. After
treatments, fruit were kept at 20
°C for 2 d and fruit quality characteristics such as
surface color and lightness, anthocyanin content, total phenol and sugar
content were measured. Also, the development of surface fungal infections was
monitored to quantify the effect of treatments. For both the heat and combined
treatments, development of surface hue was delayed, a result in accordance to
the observed reduced rate in anthocyanin increment; for these same treatments,
lightness loss was also delayed. Fruit treated with the combined physical
treatment showed a steady phenol content along the running time compared with
the decrease found in those on which the treatments were assayed separately. No
significant differences among treatments were observed in the total sugar
content except for day 2. Over the experimental time (7 d after harvest),
combined physical treatment drastically reduced surface fungal infections.
Based on these results, a potential synergistic effect from the combination of
both treatments can be foreseen for most parameters studied, thus suggesting an
innovative physical method to improve postharvest life (i.e. prolong shelf life
and maintain quality parameters), which might prove to be cheap, simple and
market-appealing as well.