عبدالعلی حسامی

Due to short shelf-life of ber fruits, developing postharvest protocols incorporating nonchemical compounds with the aim of extending its shelf life and maintaining quality is one of the major issues regarding ber fruit industry. The quality of ber fruits is greatly affected by postharvest factors especially temperature and fruit treatment. In the present study, the effect of chitosan coating and storage temperature on the physicochemical characteristics of ber fruits was investigated as a factorial experiment based on randomized complete block design with three factors (chitosan coating, storage temperature, and storage time). The ber fruits were soaked in 0%, 0.5%, and 1% chitosan solution and stored at 5 and 25°C for 28 days. Changes in fruit weight loss, shriveling, fruit firmness, total soluble solid (TSS), titratable acidity (TA), ascorbic acid as well as decay rate were periodically recorded. The results indicated that the chitosan coating significantly prevented from reducing of fruit weight, firmness, TSS, TA, and ascorbic acid content. Also, the chitosan coating controlled fruit decay. Chitosan at low temperature (5° C) had a greater positive effect on fruit shelf life and weight maintenance than 25°C. In the other words, storage temperature had influence on fruit quality and shelf life, so that the best temperature for storing of ber fruit was 5°C and fruits stored at 25°C were destroyed after two weeks. In general, the results showed that chitosan coating (1%) with low-temperature storage (5° C) is the most effective strategy for improving the physiological quality and prolong the shelf life of ber fruits.