No abstract

Water loss, interwoven with other factors, is identified as the cause of chilling injury to sweet peppers. The breaker stage is the most vulnerable of all maturity stages. The purpose of this study was to see if increasing the storage relative humidity (RH) reduces the chilling injury and to compare its effect on breaker-stage fruits to red-ripe fruits at a normal RH. The fruits were stored at 5 °C with a RH of 98 ± 2% and 70 ± 6% for high and low RH, respectively. After 15 days of cold storage, the fruits were moved to ambient conditions for 3–5 days for chilling injury symptoms to appear. The results showed that high RH storage reduced fruit water loss by 4–4.5% compared to low RH storage, resulting in fewer chilling injury symptoms regardless of fruit maturity stage. Due to the increased RH, cell membrane damage indicators such as electrolyte leakage, MDA, respiration, and ethylene production rates were shown to be reduced, while brix and color were well maintained, indicating reduced or stopped senescence. Furthermore, DPPH antioxidant activity and vitamin C were retained and optimized. The microbiological analyses also showed that a high RH may not promote the growth of microorganisms as quickly as may have been thought. Finally, the findings of this study indicate that breaker-stage peppers stored at a high RH may be less susceptible to chilling injury than red-ripe peppers stored at a low RH.

The effect of 10% CO2 pre-storage treatment for 12, 24, and 48 h alongside modified atmosphere packaging (MAP) on chilling injury was determined in this study. This study found significant interactions between chilling injuries and cell membrane damage indicators. The results show that chilling injuries can be somewhat reduced by the use of CO2 treatment for sweet peppers. It was noticed that the fruit’s respiration rate increased as the treatment duration increased immediately after the treatments, while the resultant did not affect the ethylene production rate, electrolyte leakage, or malondialdehyde. Similarly, after cold storage and on the final day, no really significant differences were shown in all those parameters except for the weight loss rate, chilling injury, calyx browning, and firmness, which were at the poorest state in the control group. Of all the treatments in this study, MAP appeared to be the best treatment, and preference may be given to the 24 h treatment of pretreated fruits. Weight loss, firmness, calyx browning, and chilling injury were maintained best in MAP due to the presence of CO2 and high humidity.

This study determined the chilling injury interactions of sweet peppers with their hydroponic growth substrate. The treatments were cocopeat, perlite, and a mixture of 50:50 cocopeat and perlite (coco-perlite). The fruits, when harvested, were stored for 50 days using the modified atmosphere package (MAP) at 5 °C. The results revealed no significant interactions between the growth substrate and the chilling injury indicators (respiration and ethylene production rates, electrolyte leakage, malondialdehyde), even though a significant interaction existed with the chilling injury index (a water-soaked area). This is believed to be due to the growth substrate’s significant interactions with soluble solids and dry matter, which aided cellular balance and increased chilling injury tolerance in perlite and coco-perlite treatment. Weight loss rate and firmness loss were insignificant in all treatments, and cocopeat treatment may be considered the worst of all treatments.