Background: Considering the high cultivated area of pomegranate, having medicinal properties, being rich in bioactive compounds and increasing its production in the world, the problem of increasing the storage life along with maintaining the highest quality characteristics of pomegranate fruit and controlling the effective factors in reducing the quality after the harvest is very important.
Aim: This study was designed and implemented in order to investigate the effect of melatonin and hot water on the storage life of pomegranate fruit cv. Rabab during 120 days of storage.
Methodology: The experiment was conducted as a factorial in a completely randomized design with four replications. Ripe fruits were treated with hot water at 25 and 50 degrees centigrade and with melatonin solution at three levels of 0, 100 and 200 micromolar and then stored at 6 degrees centigrade. The storage period for fruits was considered four months (120 days), and in each period of 30 days, quantitative and qualitative traits were investigated.
Findings: The results of analysis of variance showed that the independent effect of melatonin, hot water and storage time was significant for all investigated traits except skin fresh weight, skin dry weight and aril weight. Examining the interaction effect of these three experimental factors on the measured traits also showed that except fruit tissue firmness, fruit peel thickness, fruit peel fresh weight, fruit peel dry weight and aril weight, other traits were significantly affected. Also, the comparison of average data indicated that with the passage of storage time, traits such as percentage of weight loss, percentage of decay, ion leakage, pH of fruit juice, firmness of fruit tissue and total phenol increased and the traits of skin thickness, weight and Skin dryness, TA, TSS, vitamin C and anthocyanin had a decreasing trend, the lowest percentage of weight loss was obtained in 25 degrees centigrade water and 100 micromolar melatonin (3.31%), th