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The papers contained in this book report some of the peer reviewed Proceedings of the International Conference "Environmentally friendly and safe technologies for quality of fruit and vegetables", but also other papers related with the subject were included. The manuscripts were reviewed by the Editor and Editorial Board, and only those papers judged suitable for publication were accepted. The Editor wish to thank to all the reviewers and authors for their contribution.Authors are responsible for content and accuracy of their papers. Moldy core of apples is undetectable until the fruit is cut or bitten into, it can therefore pose serious problems to both producer and consumer. Removal of diseased fruits prior to storage would be most desirable. The objective of this study was to evaluate the ability of VIS-NIR mini-spectrometers to detect moldy core in apples, on line. An apparatus which is qualified for online NIRS (near infrared spectrometry) measurements was developed based on off-the-shelf mini-spectrometers. 'Top Red' apples, were collected from several orchards before and during the commercial harvest, and were stored at 0°C pending the tests.The data were analyzed by chemometric procedures, specifically, by partial least squares regression (PLSR), and were classified by means of canonical discriminant analysis. The canonical variables were represented by the latent variables of the PLS models, which were based on the spectra. The accuracy of the classification results was high when the moldy fraction threshold was set at 5%; in such a case the mold covers only the seed carpals of the fruit, where it might remain without really damaging the fruit. Improvements should aim to reduce errors in classifying low-level damage, and also in misclassifying some healthy fruits. The rate of testing (1 s per fruit) is acceptable for quality control purposes, but should be accelerated for future packing-line implementation.

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A prestorage heat treatment of 38C for 4 days applied to `Granny Smith' apples (Malus domestics Borkh.) before regular air storage at 0C inhibited the development of superficial scald. Heat-treated apples stored for 3 months had superficial scald levels similar to diphenylamine (DPA)-dipped apples, while all nontreated control apples had scald. After 5 or 6 months of storage, this inhibition of scald development by prestorage heat treatment declined. The prestorage heat treatment inhibited the accumulation of α-farnesene and conjugated trienes in apple cuticle during storage, while DPA inhibited only α-farnesene oxidation. This treatment may be a substitute for chemical treatments against scald not only for short-term storage of `Granny Smith' but possibly also for other scald-susceptible apple cultivars.