Abstract
This study was conducted to examine the effects of calcium treatment (2%, 20 min) and ultrasonic treatment (400 W, 20 min) on postharvest apricot fruit during storage. The results showed that after calcium and ultrasonic treatment, compared with the control, the firmness of apricot fruit increased by 41.53% and 3.83% at 16 d, but juice yield and water-soluble pectin (WSP) content decreased by 8.26% and 3.55%, 28.57% and 4.08%, respectively. Both calcium and ultrasonic treatment were more effective in reducing polygalacturonase (PG), β-Galactosidase (β-Gal), pectin methylesterase (PME), polyphenol oxidase (PPO) and peroxidase (POD) activity. Moreover, fruit firmness was significantly negatively correlated with juice yield, WSP and PPO, and positively correlated with PG and β-Gal, PPO and POD. In contrast, calcium treatment was more effective than ultrasonic treatment in delaying postharvest softening of apricot.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thanks Christopher Watkins from Cornell University in the United States for his language assistance. This work was supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Non-profit Research Institution of CAF Project (CAFYBB2017ZA004-4), Key Scientific Research in Henan Colleges and University (grant number 20A550011) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Non-profit Research Institution of CAF (CAFYBB2018GB001).
Funding
The Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Non-profit Research Institution of CAF Project (CAFYBB2017ZA004-4), Key Scientific Research in Henan Colleges and University (grant number 20A550011) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Non-profit Research Institution of CAF (CAFYBB2018GB001).
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ML and WM conceived and designed the experiments; JL performed the experiments; WS analyzed the data; WZ contributed reagents/ materials/ analysis tools; ML and SL wrote and revised the paper.
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Liu, M., Li, J., Zong, W. et al. Comparison of calcium and ultrasonic treatment on fruit firmness, pectin composition and cell wall-related enzymes of postharvest apricot during storage. J Food Sci Technol 59, 1588–1597 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13197-021-05170-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13197-021-05170-w