Articles
Improvements in postharvest apple handling from a pathology perspective
Article number
1451_22
Pages
155 – 160
Language
English
Abstract
Evaluating the effect of different treatments after a simulated shelf life is common in postharvest industry experiments.
As fungal fruit decay development is closely linked to preharvest factors, fruit quality, and postharvest treatments two other time points were added in recent experiments.
When commercial packinghouses graded the different experimental units (from 1 to 4 bins) they made three different samples; 1) all the fruit manually discarded before size grading (mostly external symptoms of fungal fruit decay and physiological disorders), 2) a 100-fruit sample of the fruit not regarded as first class by the grading machine at size grading (fruit that could be used for industry purpose, processing fruit), and 3) packed fruit for shelf life testing.
As expected, differences in pathogen presence were found varying with storage time, cultivar, season, treatments, etc., but overall, some important factors could be pointed at: up to 70% of the processing fruit had damages (caused by insects, weather or mechanical damage) that could be an entry point of fungal pathogens in storage.
Apple scab was found on up to 60% of that fruit and up to 12% of the graded fruit in shelf-life tests, indicating a less effective fungicide strategy in some of the commercial orchards.
The additional knowledge gained by having three sample types in the experiments is discussed.
As fungal fruit decay development is closely linked to preharvest factors, fruit quality, and postharvest treatments two other time points were added in recent experiments.
When commercial packinghouses graded the different experimental units (from 1 to 4 bins) they made three different samples; 1) all the fruit manually discarded before size grading (mostly external symptoms of fungal fruit decay and physiological disorders), 2) a 100-fruit sample of the fruit not regarded as first class by the grading machine at size grading (fruit that could be used for industry purpose, processing fruit), and 3) packed fruit for shelf life testing.
As expected, differences in pathogen presence were found varying with storage time, cultivar, season, treatments, etc., but overall, some important factors could be pointed at: up to 70% of the processing fruit had damages (caused by insects, weather or mechanical damage) that could be an entry point of fungal pathogens in storage.
Apple scab was found on up to 60% of that fruit and up to 12% of the graded fruit in shelf-life tests, indicating a less effective fungicide strategy in some of the commercial orchards.
The additional knowledge gained by having three sample types in the experiments is discussed.
Authors
J. Børve, T. Weigl, E. Follett, I. Øvsthus, H. Larsen, T. Haukås, E. Indergård, S.F. Remberg, D. Harteveld, A. Stensvand
Keywords
bitter rot, blue mould, brown rot, grey mould, Fusarium rot, lenticel spots, Mucor rot, Neofabraea rot, Neonectria rot, Phacidiopycnis rot
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