INFLUENCE OF THE LEVEL OF ASTRINGENCY IN THE INCIDENCE OF FLESH BROWNING DISORDER IN PERSIMMON

‘Rojo Brillante’ persimmons are astringent at harvest due to their high content of soluble tannins.
In order to commercialize fruit with crisp texture, ‘Rojo Brillante’ persimmons are routinely subjected to deastringency treatments with high concentrations of CO₂ which leads to tannins insolubilization and loss of astringency.
External flesh browning is one of the major disorders that limit the marketing of ‘Rojo Brillante’ persimmon.
This alteration is mainly caused by the mechanical impacts received by the fruit throughout the packing process.
The aim of this work was to study the influence of astringency level of the fruit in the manifestation of flesh browning in persimmon fruit.
Fruit with four different levels of astringency were subjected to packing line operations; control fruit was manually packed to avoid mechanical damage.
Only the fruit subjected to packing displayed flesh browning, which confirmed that mechanical damage is the trigger of browning disorder.
A clear relation among astringency and browning incidence was observed; the lower the level of astringency at the moment of fruit mechanically impacted throughout the packing line the higher the incidence of browning disorder during the commercialization period.

VII International Postharvest Symposium

P. Novillo, R. Gil, A. Salvador, C. Besada

soluble tannins, enzymatic process, mechanical damage, disorder

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2013.1012.148