Composition of Commercial Strawberry Cultivars and Advanced Selections as Affected by Season, Harvest, and Postharvest Storage

Abstract

<jats:p>Strawberries are one of the most important food crops grown in Florida, with a harvested area of ≈10,000 acres. The University of Florida strawberry breeding program develops cultivars adapted to this region and its particular weather conditions, with a major aim of increasing overall quality. The objective of this study was to compare the fruit of advanced breeding selections to those of commercial cultivars, for compositional attributes. Seven different strawberry genotypes were compared at harvest and after 7 days at 4 °C across multiple harvest dates during two consecutive years. Compositional attributes were highly influenced by year, harvest date within a year, genotype, and storage. Overall, compared with other genotypes, selection FL 09-127 exhibited consistently higher soluble solids and total sugar (TS) contents at harvest and after cold storage. Higher ascorbic acid (AA) and phenolic contents at harvest were observed in selection FL 07-193. However, its anthocyanin content was among the lowest. In contrast, FL 10-47 exhibited relatively low AA content at harvest but consistently high total anthocyanins (TACs) and total phenolic (TP) contents after storage. Overall, results from this study provide valuable information to the breeding process by identifying new genotypes with improved compositional attributes combined with suitable quality characteristics after cold storage.</jats:p>

Modelling the biochemical and sensory changes of strawberries during storage under diverse relative humidity conditions

“…Lower temperatures result in lower metabolic rate and higher accumulation of soluble carbohydrates and starch (Wang and Camp, 2000). Loss of sugars in strawberries postharvest has been reported elsewhere (Kelly et al, 2016b;Kelly et al, 2018) and the degradation occurs regardless of harvest or genotype effects (Cayo et al, 2016). Caleb et al (2016) also observed a depletion of sucrose and glucose in strawberries during storage; highlighting that the role of sucrose, postharvest, is to sustain the energy demand during respiration and support fruit maintenance and metabolic processes.…”

“…Strawberries harvested in 2012 had significantly higher ANC (4.04 g kg -1 ) compared to strawberries harvested in 2013 (1.69 g kg -1 ), possibly due to the higher temperatures in 2012 on the week before harvest. Differences in ANC between years were reported by Cayo et al (2016), also observing that higher temperatures around time of harvest led to higher accumulation of anthocyanins. Total anthocyanins content decreased with time with significant differences among the different RH conditions.…”

“…The concentration of AA varied from 8.25 g kg -1 in 2012 to 10.92 g kg -1 in 2013. Concentration of AA is influenced by environmental factors such as temperature, light intensity, and maturity at harvest (Cayo et al, 2016). Wang and Camp (2000) found that strawberry cultivars grown at cooler temperatures had higher concentration of AA possibly due to decreased metabolism.…”

“…Loss of AA in fresh fruit and vegetables during storage has been attributed to various causes, such as tissue degradation as the product becomes overripe, cell wall damage and enzymatic oxidation caused by bruising, but also due to water loss which can intensify AA oxidation (Nunes et al, 1998;Klein, 1987). Many other studies have also reported the loss of AA during storage of strawberries (Kelly et al, 2018;Cayo et al, 2016;Kelly et al, 2016a;Kelly et al, 2016b;Odriozola-Serrano et al, 2009). Our results show that the rate of AA degradation is linked to water loss and highlight the fast deterioration than can occur when fruit are stored in suboptimal RH conditions.…”

“…Under-addressed supply chain issues are a key cause of commercial food waste (White, 2007). Emphasis has been placed over the years on temperature management that often deviates from optimum during storage, handling and distribution, as one of the major causes of fresh fruit and vegetable overall quality deterioration (van Boekel, 2008, Taoukis et al, 1997Nunes et al, 2003;Lai et al, 2011;. Strawberry is a popular fruit around the world due its physical characteristics and its sweet flavour; but is also considered an important source of bioactive compounds such as vitamin C and diverse phenolic compounds such as phenolic acids, flavonoids and tannins (Cayo et al, 2016;Kelly et al, 2016b, Flores-Felix et al, 2018 for human nutrition. At the same time, strawberries are one of the fruits most often discarded throughout the supply chain, due to their short shelf life and high perishability and due to poor management during distribution (Kelly et al, 2018;Nunes et al, 2009, Pan et al, 2014.…”