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INFLUENCE OF SALICYLIC ACID AND STORAGE DURATION ON STORABILITY OF PERSIMMON FRUIT

. Irfan Ullah1,2, Islam Rashid2, Muhammad Sajid2, Misbahullah3, Iftikhar Aziz4, Nasir Khan5 and Mehboob Ali4, Naveed Ul Haq6


Abstract

To assess the response of persimmon fruits to the dipping application of salicylic acid and storage duration on storability, an experiment was evaluated at the Post Harvest Laboratory, Department of Horticulture, The University of Agriculture, Peshawar during the year 2021. The experiment was laid out in Completely Randomized Design with two factors factorial arrangement and repeated three times. Persimmon fruits were dipped in salicylic acid at the concentration of 0, 2, 4 and 6 mML-1 for ten minutes. After air drying the fruits were stored at ambient condition (18-24oC and 50-70% RH) and their quality parameters were studied at ten days of interval for one month. The fruits that were treated with 6 mML-1 of salicylic acid showed maximum fruit firmness (2.29 kgcm-2) and titrable acidity (0.27%) and the minimum juice contents (25.55%) and total soluble solids contents (19.24 oBrix). The untreated fruits showed highest percent disease incidence (19.17%), percent weight loss (17.28%), juice contents (35.68%) and total soluble solids (20.97 oBrix) with lowest fruit firmness (1.47 kgcm-2) and titrable acidity (0.23%). Storage duration significantly influenced all the quality parameters of persimmon fruits. The fruits stored for 30 days of storage duration showed highest disease incidence (25.00%), weight loss (21.44%), juice contents (33.15%) and TSS (21.19oBrix) with the lowest fruit firmness (0.83 kgcm-2) and titrable acidity (0.24%). The freshly harvested fruits showed highest fruit firmness (3.28 kgcm-2) and titrable acidity (0.28%) with the lowest disease incidence (0.00%), weight loss (0.00%), juice contents (25.49%) and TSS (18.82 oBrix). The interaction of salicylic acid and storage duration significantly influenced only percent disease incidence and percent weight loss, while non-significantly affected the fruit firmness, juice contents, TSS and titrable acidity. It was concluded from the results that salicylic acid effectively maintained the quality attributes of persimmon fruits through sustaining the fruit firmness, juice contents, TSS, and titrable acidity. However, the treatment of 4 mML-1 of salicylic acid was the most efficient as it minimized the percent disease incidence and percent weight loss of persimmon fruit as well as maintained other quality attributes. It was recommended from the experiment that persimmon fruits could be treated with 4 mML-1 of salicylic acid after harvest to maintain the quality attributes for 30 days storage at ambient condition (18-24oC and 50-70% RH) at Peshawar.

Keywords: Persimmon, salicylic acid, storage, disease, weight loss, firmness.

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