Qingmin Chen¹, Qingguo Wang^2*, Maorun Fu³

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¹ Department of Food Science and Engineering, College of Shandong Agricultural and Engineering, Ji’nan, China.
² College of Food Science and Engineering, Shandong Agricultural University, Tai’an, China.
³ College of Food Science and Engineering, Qilu University of Technology, Ji’nan, China.
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Abstract: Huangguan pear (Pyrus bretschneideri Rehd cv. Huangguan) is a pear cultivar that rapidly developed in China. However, rapid postharvest browning appearing in fruit peel and core during storage and shelf life pose a challenge for their marketing. The potential for low temperature conditioning (LTC) treatment to inhibit peel browning and improve quality of Huangguan pears in storage and shelf life was investigated. Pears were treated at 8℃ - 9℃ for 1, 3, 6 and 9 d, respectively, physiological indexes, including peel and core browning, core breakdown, malondialdehyde (MDA) content and ethanol content were determined and quality in storage period and shelf life was evaluated in this paper. LTC treatment alleviated peel browning and core browning either in storage or shelf life remarkably; it also delayed the decline of firmness, total soluble solids and titratable acidity in storage to some extent, inhibited ethanol and MDA content both in storage and shelf life effectively and maintained juiciness and crispness of pear fruit in shelf life. These results showed that LTC can serve as an important tool for the regulation of Huangguan pears external and internal quality in storage and shelf life with economic benefits and LTC treatment for 6 d was the optimum condition in the present study.

Keywords: Huangguan Pear, Low Temperature Conditioning, Peel Browning, Sensory Quality, Physiological Disorder

Cite this paper: Chen, Q. , Wang, Q. and Fu, M. (2015) Postharvest Low Temperature Conditioning Reduces Peel Browning and Improves Fruit Quality in Storage and Subsequent Shelf Life of Huangguan Pear. Food and Nutrition Sciences, 6, 1351-1361. doi: 10.4236/fns.2015.615141.

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