Abstract
BACKGROUND: Owing to its high perishability, the market life of nectarine fruit is very short. Cold storage is a principal approach to limit post-harvest quality loss in nectarines. The objective of this research was to evaluate the impact of postharvest methyl jasmonate (MeJA), salicylic acid (SA) and 1-methylcyclopropene (1-MCP) on quality properties of nectarine fruit, specifically weight loss, firmness, phenolics and antioxidant activity, following cold storage and subsequent shelf life. Fruit immersed in water were considered as control. The fruit were stored at 0 ± 0.5 °C and 90 ± 5% RH for 56 d, then kept at 20 ± 0.5 °C and 70 ± 5% RH for 2 d in shelf life. RESULTS: The results demonstrated that single or combined treatments of MeJA, SA and 1-MCP were effective on quality characteristics. During cold storage, fruit treated with MeJA + 1-MCP (3.66%) and SA + 1-MCP (3.54%) exhibited lower weight loss than the control (4.08%). In the final two measurements of storage, the flesh firmness of fruit treated with SA + 1-MCP (54.5 and 54.06 N, respectively) was higher than that of the control. At the end of cold storage, the SA + 1-MCP treatment (17.4%) exhibited higher soluble solids than the control (15.37%) and SA (15.20%) treatments. However, the total phenolics content was found to be higher in nectarine fruit treated with single SA than in the control, as well as in fruit treated with SA + 1-MCP and single 1-MCP. Wooliness in fruit treated with 1-MCP, SA and MeJA was found to be lower than in the control, while fruit had higher acceptance. CONCLUSIONS: As a result, the SA + 1-MCP and MeJA + 1-MCP treatments were more efficacious in retarding the weight and firmness decline of nectarine fruit during storage. Also, it was revealed that 1-MCP, SA and MeJA could be employed as efficacious instruments in nectarine fruit with respect to wooliness and acceptance, which influence consumer preferences.