Ce. Sams et al., FIRMNESS AND DECAY OF APPLES FOLLOWING POSTHARVEST PRESSURE INFILTRATION OF CALCIUM AND HEAT-TREATMENT, Journal of the American Society for Horticultural Science, 118(5), 1993, pp. 623-627
Heating 'Golden Delicious' apples (Malus domestica Borkh.) for 4 days
at 38C or pressure-infiltrating them with a 4% CaCl2 solution reduced
decay and maintained fruit firmness during 6 months of storage at 0C.
Heating reduced decay caused by Penicillium expansum Link ex Thom by a
lmost-equal-to 30%, while pressure inriltration with CaCl2 reduced dec
ay by >60%. Pressure inriltration with CaCl2 after heating reduced dec
ay by almost-equal-to 40%. Pressure infiltration maintained firmness b
est (>84 N), as measured with a manually driven electronic fruit-firmn
ess probe, followed by heat and CaCl2 (76 N), heat alone (71 N), and n
o treatment (control) (60 N). Force vs. deformation (FD) curves from a
puncture test with a fruit-firmness probe mounted in a universal test
ing machine showed that fruit heated before storage were firmer than a
ll nonheated fruit, except those pressure-infiltrated with 4% CaCl2. H
owever, FD curves also showed that apples pressure-infiltrated with 4%
CaCl2 differed quantitatively from apples in all other treatments, in
cluding those heated.