THE INFLUENCE OF HARVEST TIME ON JONATHAN AND GOLDEN DELICIOUS APPLE CULTIVARS STORAGE LIFE

  • Luminiţa Zagrai Fruit Research Station Bistrita
Keywords: apple, harvest time, storage life, soluble sugar, dry matter, acidity.

Abstract

The experiment was carried out during 2003-2005, at Fruit Research Station Bistrita. In Romania, the Jonathan and Golden delicious cultivars represent over 35% from the all cultivated cultivars (Branişte et. al., 2004). Immature fruits have a low quality and are very susceptible to some physiological disorders, like bitter-pit and scald, and the over mature fruits are susceptible to other physiological disorders, like water core and internal browning, all of these affecting the quality of fruits (Blanpied and Smock, 1982; Kader, 2002). The objective was to determine the influence of harvest time on storage life on Jonathan and Golden delicious apple cultivars. The fruits were harvested at five moments, at a rate of 7 days, beginning with 10-13 September. The apple fruits were stored into chambers from the basement of building, where the temperature was between 3-9˚C and the relative air humidity, 50-80%. After six-month storage, on both cultivars, the lowest weight losses were for the variant harvested in the period 1-4 October (16% on Jonathan cv. and 17.4% on Golden Delicous cv.), and the higher weight losses for the treatment harvested in the period 8-11 October (20.9% on Jonathan cv. and 25.1% on Golden Delicious cv.), for Bistrita area.