Chilling related disorders in peach and nectarine fruit: recent progress on its biological basis and control strategies

GEORGE A. MANGANARIS, ARIEL R. VICENTE, PEDRO J. MARTÍNEZ-GARCÍA, CARLOS H. CRISOSTO

Conferencia; ISHS PEach Conference; 2017

Peach fruit is characterized by limited market life due to incidence of chilling related disorders after extended cold storage periods. Such symptoms are evident as mealiness (wooliness), leatheriness, flesh browning (internal breakdown), and flesh reddening (bleeding) which can occur alone or in combination. Although the textural changes associated with CI were originally thought to result mainly inform the alteration of cell wall architecture abd physico-chemical properties, recent studies showed that low temperature disorders include a large number of changes including global adaptions in fruit transcriptional profiles, the alteration in the homeostasis of sugars, amino acids, phenolics, hormones (abscisic acid, gibberellin and auxin). Dysfunctions in vesicle trafficking and endocytic secretory pathways have been also reported. The most critical factors affecting the incidence of chilling injury (CI) symptoms are the genotype, storage temperature and duration and maturity stage at harvest. This work provides an overview of the latest findings in the chilling related disorders occurs in peach and nectarines at both basic and applied aspects. Special reference is given in commercially applicable strategies to extend peach market life (i.e. controlled delayed cooling) and the importance to develop through breeding programs resistant cultivars in the incidence of CI symptoms as a viable long-term strategy to reduce losses in the fresh and processed peach and nectarine industries.