scholarly journals The Combined Effects of Precision-Controlled Temperature and Relative Humidity on Artificial Ripening and Quality of Date Fruit

Foods ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 2636
Author(s):  
Maged Mohammed ◽  
Abdelkader Sallam ◽  
Nashi Alqahtani ◽  
Muhammad Munir

Due to climatic variation, in-situ date palm fruit ripening is significantly delayed, and some fruits (Biser) cannot become ripe naturally on the tree. Because of that issue, the vast quantity of produce is mere wasted. Few traditional methods are adopted to ripe these unripe fruits through open sun drying or solar tunnel dehydration techniques. However, these methods have minimal use due to ambient temperature and relative humidity (RH) instability. Therefore, the present study was designed to find a precise combination of temperature and RH to artificially ripe the unripe Biser fruits under controlled environment chambers. For that purpose, eighteen automated artificial ripening systems were developed. The Biser fruits (cv. Khalas) were placed immediately after harvesting in the treatment chambers of the systems with three set-point temperatures (45, 50, and 55 °C) and six set-point RH (30, 35, 40, 45, 50, and 55%) until ripening. The optimal treatment combination for artificial ripening of Biser fruits was 50 °C and 50% RH. This combination provided good fruit size, color, firmness, total soluble solids (TSS), pH, and sugars content. As a result, there was a reduction in fruit weight loss and had optimum fruit ripening time. On the other hand, low temperature and RH delayed the ripening process, deteriorated fruit quality, and caused more weight loss. Although the combination of the highest temperature and RH (55 °C and 55%) reduced ripening time, the fruits have higher weight loss and negative quality. Therefore, the artificial ripening of unripe date palm Biser fruits can be achieved using 50 °C temperature and 50% RH combination. These findings can be applied in the field using solar energy systems on a commercial scale to reduce the postharvest loss of date palm fruits.

1994 ◽  
Vol 63 (3) ◽  
pp. 485-491 ◽  
Author(s):  
Masahiko Yamada ◽  
Hiroyasu Yamane ◽  
Akihiko Sato ◽  
Nobuyuki Hirakawa ◽  
Renzi Wang

Author(s):  
Munir Ahmed ◽  
Sami Ullah ◽  
Kashif Razzaq ◽  
Ishtiaq Ahmad Rajwana ◽  
Gulzar Akhtar ◽  
...  

Apricot is a highly nutritive stone fruit which ripens quickly after harvest and exhibits rapid fruit quality deterioration at ambient conditions. The current research work was executed to evaluate the effect of pre-harvest application of oxalic acid (OA); (0, 0.5, 1, and 2mM) on fruit quality of ‘Red Flesh’ apricot during fruit ripening at shelf under ambient conditions (25±1 °C; 60-65% RH). Fruit size, average fruit weight, fruit juice percentage was determined at harvest. While, fruit weight loss, fruit colour, fruit firmness, titratable acidity (TA), soluble solid contents (SSC), ratio of SSC to TA, ascorbic acid, total phenolics content (TPC), anti-oxidative scavenging activity (ASA), superoxide dismutase (SOD), peroxidase (POD), catalase (CAT) enzymes activity were determined during fruit ripening. Fruit sensory attributes (fruit pulp colour, fruit taste, fruit flavour and overall acceptability were determined at fruit ripening. Pre-harvest application of 2mM-OA was found the most effective in improving fruit size, average fruit weight, juice percentage at harvest, about 5%, 6% and 15% higher than control, respectively. Additionally, pre-harvest application of 2mM-OA retained higher fruit firmness, ascorbic acid, TPC, ASA and activities of POD, CAT enzymes in apricot fruit during fruit ripening at ambient conditions. On day-5 of fruit ripening 2mM-OA-treated apricot fruit exhibited about 28%, 20%, 17%, 7%, 9% and 23% higher fruit firmness, ascorbic acid, TPC, ASA and activities of POD, CAT enzymes, respectively as compared to control. Moreover, significant lower fruit weight loss (35%), SSC (20%) and SSC:TA ratio (30%) were exhibited by the apricot fruit treated with 2mM-OA than unsprayed apricot fruit. However, fruit treated with 1 mM-OA exhibited better fruit sensory attributes compared to other treatments at fruit ripening. Conclusively, pre-harvest application of 2 mM-OA improved the fruit size, delayed fruit ripening, and retained higher fruit antioxidants of apricot at ambient conditions.


2014 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 67-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdoul Amir Rahnama ◽  
Esmaeil Rahkhodaei

Date palm is unisexual, being either male or female. Male and female flowers grow on buds called Spathe, which opens naturally when fully mature. It is easy to identify the male and female flowers. Under the method of manual pollination, pollen from a male flower is smeared over female flowers. The pollen variety and pollination time have important effects on date palm fruit set, yield and quality. This experiment was carried out to study the effect of date pollinizer variety and pollination time on fruit set, growth and development of Medjhol date palm variety, in date palm garden of date palm and tropical fruit research institute of Iran during three years from 2009 to 2011. The trail was randomized complete block design in factorial manner with three pollen variety as Ghaname, Vardy, and Samesmave, two pollination time as 1-3 days before or after spathe opening and four replication. The results showed that the Vardy pollen had significant effects and increased the fertility percent and fruit yield, rather than two other pollen varieties. The pollen variety had no significant effects on fruit quality as total sugar, acidity, and bricx. The pollination time before spathe opening significantly increased fertility percent, decreased fruit weight and date palm yield. Finally the pollen variety and pollination time interaction effects showed that, application of Vardy pollen from 1-3 days after spathe opening with the most production date palm yield, equal 19.9 kilogram per any date palm trees, so this treatment is the best and are recommended.


Horticulturae ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 34
Author(s):  
Christopher Menzel

Five strawberry (Fragaria × ananassa Duch.) cultivars were grown in Queensland, Australia to determine whether higher temperatures affect production. Transplants were planted on 29 April and data collected on growth, marketable yield, fruit weight and the incidence of small fruit less than 12 g until 28 October. Additional data were collected on fruit soluble solids content (SSC) and titratable acidity (TA) from 16 September to 28 October. Minimum temperatures were 2 °C to 4 °C higher than the long-term averages from 1965 to 1990. Changes in marketable yield followed a dose-logistic pattern (p < 0.001, R2s = 0.99). There was a strong negative relationship between fruit weight (marketable) and the average daily mean temperature in the four or seven weeks before harvest from 29 July to 28 October (p < 0.001, R2s = 0.90). There were no significant relationships between SSC and TA, and temperatures in the eight days before harvest from 16 September to 28 October (p > 0.05). The plants continued to produce a marketable crop towards the end of the season, but the fruit were small and more expensive to harvest. Higher temperatures in the future are likely to affect the economics of strawberry production in subtropical locations.


2018 ◽  
Vol 63 (4) ◽  
pp. 355-366
Author(s):  
Saadatian Mohammad ◽  
Paiza Abdurahman ◽  
Kanar Salim ◽  
Pershang Younis ◽  
Hewen Abdurahman ◽  
...  

Some physico-chemical properties of ten pomegranate accessions collected from different districts in the Kurdistan region of Iraq were investigated in this paper. Considerable correlations between the characteristics studied were found and valuable pomological traits were observed. Cluster analysis showed the homonyms between some pomegranate accessions. Principle component analysis reported that the component describing the greatest variability also positively correlated with fruit weight, total aril weight, total peel weight, volume of juice, total soluble solids (TSS), fruit length, fruit diameter, pH, aril length, and 100-seed fresh weight, but negatively correlated with titratable acidity (TA). Fruit weight was firmly correlated with total aril weight, total peel weight, volume of juice, TSS, aril length, 100-seed fresh weight, fruit length and fruit diameter. The volume of juice was correlated with TSS, aril length, 100-seed fresh weight, fruit length, fruit diameter and it was observed that with an increase in the fruit size, the volume of juice increased as well. The correlation between total phenolic compounds and antioxidant capacity was not observed. The associations found among physical and chemical traits suggest that consumers should use large fruits with large arils so that they have more juice. Thus, ?Choman?, ?Raniyeh? and ?Halabja? were juicier than other accessions.


2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 544-554 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcio Gama Dos Santos da Costa ◽  
Luiz Carlos Chamhum Salomão ◽  
Dalmo Lopes de Siqueira ◽  
Paulo Roberto Cecon ◽  
César Fernandes Aquino ◽  
...  

The objective of the study was to elucidate the best combination of ethylene dose and exposure time aiming the degreening of ‘Ponkan’ tangerines. Fruits harvested with fully green peel were placed in airtight boxes, exposed during 24, 48 and 96 h to ethylene gas at concentrations of 0, 5, 10, 20 and 40 µL L-1, at a temperature of 20 ± 1°C and 90 ± 5% of relative humidity. On every 24 h the fruits were evaluated for color, Hue angle, total chlorophyll and carotenoids in the peel, solutes leakage, soluble solids, titrable acidity, CO2 production and fresh fruit weight loss. The degreening was more pronounced in fruits exposed to ethylene for 96 h, independently the concentration. The electrolytes leakage peel increased linearly in fruit-control and those exposed to ethylene for 24 h. In fruits treated for 48 and 96 h, electrolyte leakage was observed only during ethylene exposure. The accumulated fresh mass loss did not exceeded 1% in the fruits. The ethylene dose did not affected the fruit respiratory behavior. The best combination aiming fruit degreening was the exposure during 96 h with 5 μL L-1 of ethylene, followed by 48 to 72 hours of storage after treatment.


Genetika ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 873-880 ◽  
Author(s):  
Milica Fotiric-Aksic ◽  
Tihomir Nikolic

Sweet cherry breeding programs are interested in developing new cultivars that are very early or very late in ripening, high yielding, with excellent fruit size and quality. The aim of this study was to evaluate new, promising, sweet cherry genotypes (G-1 and G-2) for ripening time, fruit morphology and fruit chemical content, and compare it with the standard sweet cherry cultivars (Bigarreau Jaboulay, B. H. Burlat, Seneca, Hedelfiger Riesenkirsche, Germersdorfer Grosse Kirsche, Emperor Francis and Bing). Experiment was done during four consecutive years (2006-2009) in Grocka, near Belgrade. The earliest fruit ripening was recorded in G-2 (22nd April) while the latest in `Bing` (2nd June). Fruit weight varied from 5.83 g (G-2) up to 8.93 g (G-1). Soluble solid content and total sugar content were the lowest in genotype G-2 (10.48%; 8.45%, respectively) but the highest in Emperor Francis (18.28%; 15.98%, respectively). No matter the fact that some standard cultivars showed better results for some traits, genotypes G-1 and G-2 are considered very promising. So, genotype G-1 could be intended for table consumption since it ripens 2-3 days after cv. B. H. Burlat, but have much higher fruit weight. Also, genotype G-2, the earliest in this trial, showed satisfactory fruit weight for this ripening time, which makes it very interesting for fresh market production.


2020 ◽  
Vol 73 (1) ◽  
pp. 9019-9027
Author(s):  
Jorge Andres Betancur G. ◽  
Sandra Bibiana Muriel R. ◽  
Elena Paola Gonzalez J.

The red dragon fruit Selenicereus undatus is a native fruit from the Americas. Its growing appeal in the international market as an exotic fruit highlights the relevance of the crop for the local economies. In Colombia, the high diversity within the genus and species makes it difficult to have reliable materials for propagation as cultivars. This agronomic challenge requires more studies of the distribution and real diversity within the genus Selenicereus sp. Due to the information aforementioned, the fruit is harvested in small localities as an extraction production system. This project aimed to morphologically characterize the working collection of red dragon fruit under growing conditions in the Municipality of San Jerónimo. It contained 30 accessions from the departments of Antioquia, Córdoba, and Valle del Cauca. Twenty-one characters of cladode, flower, and fruit were quantified to assess the diversity, and a restricted cluster analysis was performed to understand the morphological richness of the materials. As a result, it was observed differences in terms of stems, such as distance between areolas and width of cladode. This was also observed in flowers, in which their total length, the width of petals, the presence of trichomes, the color of calyx and petals, and the color of the stigma were different. Also, differences were recorded in the fruit. Characteristics such as weight and color of its skin were assessed, resulting in fruit size medium to small. Regarding other properties, total soluble solids varied between 11.2 to 15.6 °Brix. 55% of the fruits have measurements that fit market requirements. Finally, three accessions match the requirements of weight and °Brix, to be used as possible genotypes by commercial growers; however, studies about agronomic management strategies that favor an increase in fruit weight must be done.


Agronomy ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (7) ◽  
pp. 1023
Author(s):  
Olaniyi Amos Fawole ◽  
Shannon Claudia Riva ◽  
Umezuruike Linus Opara

The effect of six edible coatings were investigated on the ability to alleviate shrivel and extend shelf life of plums. Fruit were subjected to a simulated shipping period (−0.5 ± 2 °C and 90 ± 5% relative humidity (RH)) for five weeks and a subsequent shelf life period (20 ± 2 °C and 80 ± 5% RH) for 20 d. Overall, the study showed that it is possible to alleviate shrivel and also extend shelf life of plum (‘African Delight™’) at export and shelf life conditions. Amongst the edible coatings investigated, the findings in fruit coated with gum arabic and the commercial products were comparable and promising for postharvest preservation of the investigated plum cultivar. The coatings showed a moderate delay of fruit ripening, significantly reduced weight loss and shrivel development, allowing for the export of fruit over a long distance (five weeks) and up to 20 d of shelf life.


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