Characterization of peach cultivars with different susceptibility to chilling injury

GENERO M., GABILONDO J., BUDDE C., ANDREO C., LARA M. V., DRINCOVICH M. F., BUSTAMANTE C.

Potrero de los Funes. San Luis

Congreso; XLVII Reunión de la Sociedad Argentina de Investigación en Bioquímica y Biología Molecular (SAIB); 2011

Sociedad Argentina de Investigación en Bioquímica y Biología Molecular (SAIB)

Refrigeration of peaches during marketing and shipping affects fruit quality causing physiological disorders collectively named chilling injury (CI). CI is genetically influenced and triggered by a combination of storage temperature and storage period. In this work, early-, mid- and late-season peach cultivars were examined at harvest, during ripening at 20ºC until reaching firmness values less than 2 kgf, after cold storage (3 weeks, 0ºC) and after cold storage plus ripening at 20ºC. Among the tested cultivars, and based on extractable juice measurements, Springlady and Flordaking fruits showed contrasting susceptibility to CI symptoms after cold storage. After 3 weeks at 0ºC plus ripening at 20ºC Springlady peaches had expressible juice similar to that of unstored fruit held for 5 days at 20ºC, while Flordaking fruits had significantly lower expressible juice, thus being more susceptible to woolliness. Quality attributes, ethylene production and the expression of genes encoding proteins involved in cell wall metabolism (determined by qRT-PCR) were analyzed in these two cultivars. Thus, our aim is to inspect for transcripts associated with cell wall metabolism that could be differentially accumulated in these two cultivars with contrast susceptibility to CI in order to identify the principal cell wall proteins involved in the alleviation of CI.