Advances in postharvest sulfur handling technology on longan fruit

Longan (Dimocarpus longan Lour.) belong to the family Sapindaceae, is harvested in high temperature and humid summer, resulting in rapid senescence.
Therefore, it is important to optimize postharvest handling to extend storage life or maintain quality of the fruit.
Treating longan fruit with sulfur has been the most effective postharvest handling technique, and is widely used in practice.
Common sulfur treatment methods include sulfur fumigation, soaking and slow-release.
Many studies have shown that proper content of sulfur treatments can maintain pericarp color by inhibiting browning, reducing respiratory intensity, inhibiting polyphenol oxidase activity, reducing free-radical damage, killing pathogens on the surface of the fruits and improving fruit quality to some extent.
However, use of excess dosage of sulfur treatments would be harmful.
Therefore, recent research is trying to find alternatives to sulfur treatment, but it still needs extensive investigation.

V International Symposium on Lychee, Longan and Other Sapindaceae Fruits

Shuai Liang, Han Dongmei, Wu Zhenxian

longan, sulfur treatment, sulfur dioxide residue

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2018.1211.32