Studying the factors that Increase the shelf-life in citrus fruit

Abstract

Navel oranges are prone to develop postharvest spoilage during storage. There are numerous factors contributing to spoilage such as temperature, humidity and fungal attack. The present research aims is to investigate the environmental factors (e.g. temperature & relative humidity) affecting the shelf-life of citrus fruit and to determine the effect of biopolymer coating on the shelf-life of citrus fruit. In this research, chitosan, alginate and guazatine had been employed as fruits coating. The influence of altering storage temperature and relative humidity on the incidence of postharvest spoilage in terms of weight loss, size, shape, color and pH on the physiological behavior of oranges was examined. Postharvest spoilage was reduced by keeping them at low temperature (6°C) but was enhanced when exposed to high temperature (40 °C), ambient temperature (fluctuation of temperature and humid with an average of 31.38 °C, 76.75% RH) and high humid (91% RH). Furthermore, coatings such as chitosan, alginate and guazatine were investigated for their capacity to preserve the quality of oranges. Navel oranges were coated with one of five different coating formulations: 0.1% chitin, 0.5% chitin, 0.1% alginate, 0.5% alginate and 0.5% guazatine. Overall, it was found that chitosan, alginate and guazatine coating did not effectively prolong the shelf-life of Navel oranges since all coating barely minimized the weight loss during storage as weight of coated Navel oranges not remained closed to its original weight.