‘Opus’ and ‘Leon’ snap beans were harvested, hydrocooled, held for 2 to 7 days at five temperatures and evaluated for quality attributes. The objectives of this work were to obtain quality curves at chilling and non-chilling temperatures, identify for each temperature which quality attributes limit snap beans marketability, and determine the remaining compositional value at the point the snap beans had reached the minimum acceptable quality for sale. Results from this study showed that temperature had a significant effect on the shelf life and overall quality of snap bean. Snap beans stored at temperatures higher than 10 °C were less green, softer and more shriveled, had higher weight loss, and lower acidity, soluble solids, ascorbic acid, and chlorophylls contents than those stored at lower temperatures. When stored at 1, 5, and 10 °C, ‘Leon’ snap beans developed chilling injury (CI), whereas no visual symptoms were noticeable in ‘Opus’ snap beans. Although CI might have indirectly affected the quality of ‘Leon’ snap beans, it was not considered a sensory quality-limiting factor. Overall, weight loss was the first non-sensory quality attribute to reach the limit of acceptability, whereas firmness was the first sensory quality attribute, followed by color, to reach the limit of acceptability and therefore limited the shelf life of ‘Opus’ and ‘Leon’ snap beans cultivars. As a result of excessive water loss and accelerated softening, shelf life of both snap bean cultivars was relatively short, ranging from 1 to 3.5 days, depending on the temperature and cultivar. Furthermore, the compositional value was considerably reduced at the point of poor sensory quality. The high weight loss obtained for beans stored at all temperatures suggests that the use of a film wrap may help create a high relative humidity and therefore reduce water loss, maintain better overall quality, and extend the shelf life of snap beans. Overall, maximum shelf life and best quality were obtained when ‘Opus’ and ‘Leon’ snap beans were stored at 10 °C.

No abstract

In Brazil, the prickly pear has been gaining more and more attention, mainly due to its nutritional health promotion benefits. However, its postharvest conservation is still incipient The aim of this study was to evaluate the use of cassava starch in different concentrations in relation to quality preservation and postharvest shelf life prolongation of prickly pear stored at 10 °C and relative humidity of 95%. Fruit were harvested at maturation stage III, in plants with 8 years of age, in the municipality of Janaúba - MG. Then they were selected, sanitized and immersed in sulutions of cassava starch at 0; 1; 2 and 3% for 1 minute and stored at 10 ± 1 ◦C and relative humidity of 95 ± 5%, for 25 days, and evaluated every five days. The designed trial consisted of a completely randomized trial, in a 4x6 factorial scheme: four concentrations of cassava starch and six periods of evaluations (0, 5, 10, 15, 20 and 25 days), with four replications. Fruit were evaluated for physical, chemical and nutritional characteristics. During storage were observed weight loss, firmness loss, chlorophyll degradation, acidity reduction and ascorbic acid, with increase of soluble solids, total sugars and carotenoids in fruit. The higher the cassava starch concentration, the greater the maintenance of fruit quality. The 3% cassava starch coating was the most efficient at delaying the weight loss, decay, softening and wilting in the fruits, the main characteristics that affect the quality of prickly pear. However, this concentration presented, as an inconvenience, coating peeling at the end of storage.

-Repeatability analysis has been used to study traits in several crops, assisting in the definition of the minimum number needed to evaluate genotypes more efficiently and with less time and resource consumption. So far, however, no repeatability studies on cactus pear have been found in the literature. The objective of this study was to determine the coefficient of repeatability for cactus pear fruits traits and the minimum number of evaluations (fruit) that can provide acceptable accuracy for the prediction of the true value. The experiment was conducted at the Federal Institute of Bahia/Campus Guanambi, with 150 fruits collected from three municipalities in the state of Bahia. The coefficients of repeatability were estimated by the methods of analysis of variance, principal components based on the covariance (PCCV) and correlation (PCC) matrices, and structural analysis based on the correlation matrix (SA). The analysis of variance showed that, except for fruit diameter, the effect of the production site (municipality) was significant for all traits evaluated. The PCCV method was proven the most suitable for studying the repeatability of quality traits of cactus pear fruits. Seven fruits were required to determine, with 90% confidence, the traits length, diameter, fruit firmness, skin thickness, number of seeds, fruit mass, bark mass, pulp mass, pH, titratable acidity, soluble solids, SS/AT ratio, and pulp yield.