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ARS Home » Pacific West Area » Wenatchee, Washington » Physiology and Pathology of Tree Fruits Research » Research » Research Project #430474

Research Project: Reducing Scald After Long-Term Controlled Atmosphere (CA) Storage

Location: Physiology and Pathology of Tree Fruits Research

Project Number: 2094-43000-007-017-T
Project Type: Trust Fund Cooperative Agreement

Start Date: Apr 1, 2016
End Date: Dec 31, 2019

Objective:
Determine rapid, stress provoking, at-harvest treatments reduce scald levels during a prolonged supply chain. Validate changes in peel chemistry as indicators of efficacy for stress-based scald treatments. Determine how at-harvest treatments that provoke stress impact other fruit quality factors. Determine if post-storage reduction of ethylene action is a feasible post-storage scald control technique.

Approach:
We will evaluate superficial scald incidence during and following long-term Controlled Atmosphere (CA) storage and metabolic profile shortly prior to CA storage in response to pre-storage temperature conditioning and reactive oxygen and/or nitrogen species. Fruit will be harvested or acquired from commercial orchards, treated and stored in existing experimental CA storage chambers and refrigerated research rooms. Metabolic profile will be analyzed using our in-house GC and LC-MS based metabolic profiling protocols.