Effects of calcium acetate on shelf life, maintaining qualitative characteristics and reduction of postharvest decay of apricot fruit cv. ‘Shekar Pareh’

In order to study the effect of calcium acetate on shelf life, maintaining qualitative characteristics and reduction of postharvest decay of apricot fruit cv. ‘Shekar Pareh’, a factorial experiment was performed in a randomized complete design with 4 replications. Fruit harvested at the commercial maturity and immediately were transferred to postharvest laboratory of university of Zanjan. Then, fruits were immersed in different concentrations of calcium acetate [0 (control), 12.64 and 31.61 mM] for 10 minutes. Treated fruit were packed in boxes with polyethylene cover and stored at 4 °C and 95±5% relative humidity for one month. Quantitative and qualitative parameters of the fruitwere measured in three times (10, 20, 30 days of storage). The results showed that application of calcium acetate significantly inhibit weight loss and also maintain the firmness of the fruit. Ascorbic acid was reduced during the storage time and the lowest ascorbic acid measured in control. Calcium acetate prevented of increasing TSS. Immersion in calcium acetate increased TA, calcium concentration, moisture content and reduced carotenoids and TSS/TA ratio. Calcium acetate by reduction of postharvest decay caused increasing shelf life of apricot fruit. Overall, it can be concluded that, the quality of apricot was improved by application of calcium acetate which delayed the ripening of fruits.