ISHS Acta Horticulturae 343: Physiological Basis of Postharvest Technologies
INFLUENCE OF HEAT TREATMENT ON THE PHYSIOLOGICAL RESPONSE OF SWEET PEPPER KEPT AT CHILLING TEMPERATURE |
| Authors: | F. Mencarelli, B. Ceccantoni, A. Bolini, G. Anelli |
| Abstract:
Heat and cold treatments are now being tested to meet non-carcinogenic, non-polluting, non-damaging requirements of procedures for insect disinfestation. Beyond the disinfestation, a positive effect of heat treatment is the induction of transient thermotolerance in many plants (Yarwood, 1961; Chen et al., 1982; Key et al., 1985). As this thermotolerance response develops, a unique group of proteins, known as heat shock proteins (HSP), are synthesized (Key et al., 1981). Because prior exposure to one stress may in some cases protect against another stress, Klein and Lurie (1991) hypothesized that heat treatment could protect a fruit against low-temperature injury. Saltveit and Cabrera (1988) noted that temperature above 30C (temperature conditioning) reduced chilling injury in tomato fruits. This response was confirmed by Lurie and Klein (1991): they observed that tomato fruits kept at 36–40C for 3 days before storage at chilling temperature developed less chilling injury and accumulated HSP. Sweet pepper fruits are very sensitive to low temperature injury. For this reason we studied the possibility to induce thermotolerance by using heat treatments and to protect sweet peppers from low temperature during distribution chain. Paull and Chen (1990) induced thermotolerance to otherwise injurious heat treatment and formation of translated polypeptides in papaya fruits with short time (4 hr) heat treatments (38–42C). We decided to test first short time heat treatments (HTST) and then long time heat treatments (HTLT). | |
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