Application of Aloe vera Gel Coating Enriched with Golpar Essential Oil on the Shelf

Use of safe and environmental friendly compounds is one of the most important challenges in post-harvest researchers. This study was conducted to determine the effects of Aloe vera coating enriched with golpar (Heracleum persicum) essential oil on the storage life and quality attributes of Zaferani peach fruits. Different treatments including Aloe vera gel at 0, 7.5 and 15% and golpar essential oil at 0, 100 and 200 ppm were used. Response surface method was used for optimization of the data. Different quality attributes including total soluble solids, pH, total acidity, fruit firmness, total phenolics, sensory attributes and fruits color were measured. Application of the Aloe vera gel enriched with golpar essential oil decreased the amount of fruit weight loss (1.24%) and softening and increased the fruit firmness (7.35 kg/cm2) and total phenolic content during the storage period. Increase of the storage time and golpar essential oil concentration led to the decrease in organic acids content (0.68 %w/w) and so the increase of fruit pH (3.63), but the increase of Aloe vera gel concentration retained the fruit TA and decreased its pH content. Total soluble solid of peach fruits was increased with the increase of the storage time and golpar concentration and decreased with the increase of Aloe vera gel concentration. The increase of storage time and golpar concentration increased different color parameters such as L and b indexes and decreased a index of peach fruits, however, with the increase of Aloe vera gel concentration, L and b indexes were decrease and a index was increased. The results showed that application of Aloe vera gel enriched with golpar essential oil leads to maintain the quality properties and increase the sensory attributes of peach fruits during storage period