Acta Scientiarum Polonorum-Hortorum Cultus, cilt.21, sa.3, ss.1-10, 2022 (SCI-Expanded)
Hydrothermal treatments are long known curing
methods for the improvement of fruits resistance against storage conditions and
for controlling fungal pathogens. The optimal conditions of the hydrothermal
treatments significantly vary among species and varieties/cultivars. Present
research was conducted to measure the storability effect of hot water dipping
(HWD). First of all, three different hydrothermal temperatures (45, 50 and 55°C) tested for 3 different
HWD durations (3, 4 and 5 min). Hereafter, main studies were performed with 50°C for 5 min HWD treatment
which provided highest performance in preliminary experiments. In this main
studies, physical, bio-chemical, physiological and enzymatic characteristics of
the fruits were also tested with 20 days interval for 120 days of storage.
Results suggested that the HWD treatment reduce respiration rate and enhance
the activity of some enzymes, mainly polyphenol oxidase (PPO), peroxidase (POD) and superoxide dismutase (SOD), and helps to preserve physical and
bio-chemical quality of ‘Newhall’ navel oranges.