Controlled Water Stress to Improve Fruit and Vegetable Postharvest Quality

Nora, Leonardo; Dalmazo, Gabriel Ollé; Nora, Fabiana Roos; Rombaldi, César Valmor

doi:10.5772/30182

Cited by 24 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 50 publications

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“…Applying RDI, to “Summit” sweet cherry trees after the crop was harvested did not impact yield but could save water up to 45% without affecting firmness and limiting thinning costs (Marsal et al, 2010 ). Limiting water supply during cherry tree development, either by drip irrigation or RDI, may help to produce healthier food a more sustainable manner (Nora et al, 2012 ), and would especially be important taking into account the effects of climate change.…”

Section: How Do Growth Conditions Affect Fruit Quality and The Level mentioning

confidence: 99%

Factors Affecting Quality and Health Promoting Compounds during Growth and Postharvest Life of Sweet Cherry (Prunus avium L.)

et al. 2017

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Sweet cherries are attractive fruits due to their taste, color, nutritional value, and beneficial health effects. Sweet cherry is a highly perishable fruit and all quality attributes and the level of health promoting compounds are affected by growth conditions, picking, packing, transport, and storage. During production, the correct combination of scion × rootstock will produce fruits with higher firmness, weight, sugars, vitamins, and phenolic compounds that boost the fruit antioxidant activity. Orchard management, such as applying drip irrigation and summer pruning, will increase fruit sugar levels and total phenolic content, while application of growth regulators can result in improved storability, increased red coloring, increased fruit size, and reduced cracking. Salicylic acid, oxalic acid, acetylsalicylic acid, and methyl salicylate are promising growth regulators as they also increase total phenolics, anthocyanins, and induce higher activity of antioxidant enzymes. These growth regulators are now also applied as fruit coatings that improve shelf-life with higher antioxidant enzyme activities and total phenolics. Optimizing storage and transport conditions, such as hydro cooling with added CaCl2, chain temperature and relative humidity control, are crucial for slowing down decay of quality attributes and increasing the antioxidant capacity. Application of controlled atmosphere during storage is successful in delaying quality attributes, but lowers ascorbic acid levels. The combination of low temperature storage in combination with modified atmosphere packaging (MAP) is successful in reducing the incidence of fruit decay, while preserving taste attributes and stem color with a higher antioxidant capacity. A new trend in MAP is the use of biodegradable films such as micro-perforated polylactic acid film that combine significant retention of quality attributes, high consumer acceptability, and a reduced environmental footprint. Another trend is to replace MAP with fruit edible coatings. Edible coatings, such as various lipid composite coatings, have advantages in retaining quality attributes and increasing the antioxidant activity (chitosan) and are regarded as approved food additives, although studies regarding consumer acceptance are needed. The recent publication of the sweet cherry genome will likely increase the identification of more candidate genes involved in growing and maintaining health related compounds and quality attributes.

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Section: How Do Growth Conditions Affect Fruit Quality and The Level mentioning

confidence: 99%

Factors Affecting Quality and Health Promoting Compounds during Growth and Postharvest Life of Sweet Cherry (Prunus avium L.)

et al. 2017

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“…Fruits supply a large range of health-promoting phytochemicals, of which secondary metabolites, primarily terpenoids (carotenoids, ABA, and others), and phenolic compounds, are the largest group along with AsA. Of all of the environmental factors that play a stimulating role in the synthesis and accumulation of useful phytochemicals in fruits, moderate stress, and more specifically, controlled drought may influence the metabolism of these phytochemicals via at least two major mechanisms that are not mutually exclusive and that may even interact ( Nora et al, 2012 ; Poiroux-Gonord et al, 2013 ; Fanciullino et al, 2014 ). Firstly, drought typically induces a decrease in net photosynthesis which reduces the supply of primary metabolites to the fruits that are the major source of precursors for the biosynthesis of phenolic compounds, carotenoids, and AsA.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Potential of the MAGIC TOM Parental Accessions to Explore the Genetic Variability in Tomato Acclimation to Repeated Cycles of Water Deficit and Recovery

2016

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Episodes of water deficit (WD) during the crop cycle of tomato may negatively impact plant growth and fruit yield, but they may also improve fruit quality. Moreover, a moderate WD may induce a plant “memory effect” which is known to stimulate plant acclimation and defenses for upcoming stress episodes. The objective of this study was to analyze the positive and negative impacts of repeated episodes of WD at the plant and fruit levels. Three episodes of WD (–38, –45, and –55% of water supply) followed by three periods of recovery (“WD treatments”), were applied to the eight parents of the Multi-Parent Advanced Generation Inter-Cross population which offers the largest allelic variability observed in tomato. Predawn and midday water potentials, chlorophyll a fluorescence, growth and fruit quality traits [contents in sugars, acids, carotenoids, and ascorbic acid (AsA)] were measured throughout the experiment. Important genotypic variations were observed both at the plant and fruit levels and variations in fruit and leaf traits were found not to be correlated. Overall, the WD treatments were at the origin of important osmotic regulations, reduction of leaf growth, acclimation of photosynthetic functioning, notably through an increase in the chlorophyll content and in the quantum yield of the electron transport flux until PSI acceptors (J0RE1/JABS). The effects on fruit sugar, acid, carotenoid and AsA contents on a dry matter basis ranged from negative to positive to nil depending on genotypes and stress intensity. Three small fruit size accessions were richer in AsA on a fresh matter basis, due to concentration effects. So, fruit quality was improved under WD mainly through concentration effects. On the whole, two accessions, LA1420 and Criollo appeared as interesting genetic resources, cumulating adaptive traits both at the leaf and fruit levels. Our observations show that the complexity involved in plant responses, when considering a broad range of physiological traits and the variability of genotypic effects, represent a true challenge for upcoming studies aiming at taking advantage of, not just dealing with WD.

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“…In both lines, 2-propenyl glucosinolate and 3-indolyl methyl glucosinolate were the most representative GSLs with an increase of 80% and 120%, respectively, in both lines. The increase was inversely correlated to the soil water content with severe yield losses (Nora et al, 2012).…”

Section: Water Stress and Produce Qualitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Effect of Preharvest Abiotic Stresses on the Accumulation of Bioactive Compounds in Horticultural Produce

et al. 2019

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The quality of horticultural products is the result of the interaction of different factors, including grower’s crop management ability, genotype, and environment. Sub-optimal environmental conditions during plant growth can induce abiotic stresses and reduce the crop performance with yield reduction and quality losses. However, abiotic stresses can induce several physiological, biochemical, and molecular responses in plants, aiming to cope with the stressful conditions. It is well known that these abiotic stresses are also elicitors of the biosynthesis of many metabolites in plants, including a wide range of bioactive compounds, which firstly serve as functional molecules for crop adaptation, but they have also a great interest for their beneficial effects on human health. Nowadays, the consumer is oriented to low-energy foods with low fat content, but at the same time, growing attention is paid to the presence of bioactive molecules, which are recognized as health-related compounds and concur to the nutraceutical value of plant-derived foods. In this context, fruit and vegetables play an important role as sources of bioactive ingredients in the diet. At the cultivation level, the understanding of crop responses to abiotic stresses and how they act in the biosynthesis/accumulation of these bioactive compounds is crucial. In fact, controlled abiotic stresses can be used as tools for improving the nutraceutical value of fruit and vegetables. This review focuses on the quality of vegetables and fruits as affected by preharvest abiotic stressors, with particular attention to the effect on the nutraceutical aspects.

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Controlled Water Stress to Improve Fruit and Vegetable Postharvest Quality

Cited by 24 publications

References 50 publications

Factors Affecting Quality and Health Promoting Compounds during Growth and Postharvest Life of Sweet Cherry (Prunus avium L.)

Factors Affecting Quality and Health Promoting Compounds during Growth and Postharvest Life of Sweet Cherry (Prunus avium L.)

The Potential of the MAGIC TOM Parental Accessions to Explore the Genetic Variability in Tomato Acclimation to Repeated Cycles of Water Deficit and Recovery

Effect of Preharvest Abiotic Stresses on the Accumulation of Bioactive Compounds in Horticultural Produce

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