Effects of Preharvest and Postharvest Application of Calcium Chloride on Quality, Quantity and Storage life of Citrus Fruit

• Main Authors: Mahmoudi, Mojtaba, Akhlaghi Amiri, Negin, Forotan, Abdorreza, Hadinejad, Hassan, Jafarzadeh, Hossein, Shetaban, Morteza, Sadeghi, Sadegh, Goran, Hekmat-Allah
• Format: Publication
• Language: Persian
• Published: Karaj (Iran) Soil and Water Reaserch Institute 2007
• Subjects: APTITUD PARA LA CONSERVACION; APTITUDE A LA CONSERVATION; CALCIUM CHLORIDE; CHLORURE DE CALCIUM; CLORURO CALCICO; http://www.fao.org/aos/agrovoc#c_15892; http://www.fao.org/aos/agrovoc#c_4082; KEEPING QUALITY

High percentage of postharvest losses is one of the main problems in Iran citrus industry. Calcium is the most important nutrient¡ which effects on quality¡ skin firmness and storage life of fruits. In order to study the effects of calcium chloride on yield¡ quality and storage properties of citrus¡ an experiment was conducted at two stage on fully fruit-bearing trees of tamson navel orange and unshiu tangerine cultivars during two years. Calcium chloride was sprayed at first stage¡ in the form of factorial¡ in randomized complete block design. The treatments¡ with 3 replications included: control (two and three times of water spraying)¡ spraying of 0.25% and 0.5% of Calcium chloride at two times (June¡ July) and spraying of 0.25% and 0.5% of Calcium chloride at three times (June¡ July and November). The second stage was carried out in the form of factorial¡ in completely randomized design with 3 replications. This stage included soaking of fruits (from first stage) with 0¡ 1.5 and 3 percent of Calcium chloride in one hour. Results showed that¡ increasing in spray concentration decreased the vitamin C and total acidity in tamson navel var.¡ while pH was increased and Ca concentration in leaf¡ juice and skin of fruit was increased in two cultivars. The effect of foliar application of Cacl2 was not significant on yield of two cultivars at each two years. Fruit loss was the maximum in the interaction between spray control and soak control¡ equal to 20.81%. There was no decay in the interaction between 3 times spraying and 1.5% of soaking. In second year¡ Ca concentration in leaf of tamson navel var. has shown the significant difference. Fruit quality properties such as total acidity; skin thickness and mean weight did not changed significantly. The least decay in unsho tangerine was seen at the highest level of spraying and soaking treatments. Amounts of tamson navel losses were decreased 18% with comparison to control. In general¡ it is concluded that spraying of CaCl2 led to decreasing of TSS and Ascorbic acid but spraying and soaking had the benefit and considerably effects on loss and decay of fruit. The mean of two years showed that the spraying decreased the decay up to 72% and the losses to 18.4% for tangerine and 24% and 24.04% for tamson navel respectively. Soaking decreased fruit losses (6.5%) and fruit decay (29.09%).