ISHS Acta Horticulturae 326: International Symposium on Pre- and Postharvest Physiology of Pome-fruit
REDUCTION OF STORAGE DECAY IN APPLES BY POSTHARVEST CALCIUM INFILTRATION |
| Authors: | W. S. Conway, Rowel B. Tobias, D. C. E. Sams |
| Abstract:
There is a close correlation between the calcium content of stored fruits and pathological disorders. When apple fruit were pressure infiltrated at harvest with varying amounts of calcium chloride solutions, both total and cell wall bound calcium of the fruit tissue were greatly increased. Inoculation of calcium treated fruit after storage with either Penicillium expansum, Botrytis cinerea, or Glomerella cingulata resulted in less decay than in nontreated fruit. However, the effect was differential, depending upon the pathogen involved. When polygalacturonase was purified from P. expansum decayed apple tissue and apple cell walls with varying amounts of calcium were used as a substrate, less product was formed as a result of enzyme maceration in high calcium cell walls compared with low calcium cell walls. Likewise, when B. cinerea decayed apple tissue containing high or low amounts of calcium was analyzed, the results indicated that the effect of calcium in reducing decay is associated with maintaining cell wall structure by delaying or modifying chemical changes in cell wall composition. | |
Download Adobe Acrobat Reader (free software to read PDF files) | |
