Effect of harvesting date and immersion treatment on the specific traits for local sweet lemon during cold storage

Abstract EN

The experiment was conducted in the Laboratory of Postgraduate Studies belonging to the Department of Horticulture and Landscape Gardening, College of Agriculture, Al-Qasim Green University for the season of 2017 on the fruits of the local sweet lemon obtained from one of the private orchards in Baqubah, Diyala province from trees with 30 year age cultivated under the palms to study the effect of harvesting date and immersion in calcium chloride solutions at a concentration of (1, 2 g.

L-1) for 5 min, Chitosan at a concentration of (20, 20 g.

L-1) for 10 min and salicylic acid at a concentration of (0.

4, 0.

8 g.

L-1) for 10 min on the traits of the stored fruits for three months at a temperature of (5 ± 1 °C) and relative humidity (85 - 90%).

A factorial experiment was conducted with two factors according to the completely randomized design (CRD), with three replicates.

The differences between the averages were compared according to the least significant difference test (L.

S.

D) at the probability level of (0.

05), the results can be summarized as follows: 1- The fruits of the second date (December) were significantly excelled by reducing the rate of fruit respiration compared to the fruits of the first date (November).

2- The use of Chitosan at a concentration of (10 g.

L-1) led to increasing the percentage of juice and the juice/peel ratio.

While the same treatment was characterized by reducing the percentage of the fruit's peel to 31.

07% compared to the fruits treated with salicylic acid at a concentration of (0.

8 g.

L-1), which maintained the highest percentage of the fruit's peel amounted to (42.

71%).

It was also characterized by reducing the percentage of spoilage to 4.

75% compared to non-treated fruits in which the spoilage rate was raised to (11.

92%), While the fruits treated with Chitosan at a concentration of (20 g.

L-1) were characterized a significant decrease in the average of respiration speed which amounted to (5.

423 mg CO2 / kg/hr) compared with untreated fruits in which the average increased to (5.

699 mg CO2 / kg/hr).