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Owing to their health-boosting properties and other appreciable properties, citrus fruit is widely consumed and commercialized worldwide. Destination markets around the world vary in their fruit quality requirements and are also highly influenced by climatic conditions, agronomical and postharvest practices. Hence, harvesting decisions are arduous. Maturity indices in citrus fruit are highly variable and dependent on the species and varieties, growing regions, and destination markets. For decades, determination of the maturity of citrus fruit and predicting the near time of harvesting was a challenge for producers, researchers, and food safety agencies. Thus, the current review provides a correlation between maturity and internal components and an overview of techniques of maturity determination for citrus fruits. Also, stress has been given to the destructive and nondestructive methods to determine the maturity level of different citrus species. The techniques presented in this review portray continuous productiveness as an excellent quality assessment, particularly as ripening and maturity analysis tools for citrus fruits. Traditional techniques are time-consuming, laborious, costly, destructive, and tedious. Thus, these nondestructive techniques hold great potential to replace conventional procedures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climacteric fruits continue to ripen postharvest, characterized by an increase in respiration and ethylene. Thus, the shelf-life, quality, and marketability of these fruits is reduced rapidly. One of the most important postharvest technology used to reduce the effect of exogenous and endogenous ethylene and extend the shelf-life of climacteric fruits is 1-methylcyclopropene (1-MCP). Currently, the application of 1-MCP on certain climacteric fruits is not commercially feasible due to the variable effects associated with this technology. In this review, factors that influence 1-MCP efficacy in climacteric fruits such as fruit maturity, concentration, genotypes, storage temperature and atmospheres, packaging material and application timing are critically discussed. In addition, current techniques used to mitigate the 1-MCP variability such as combined application with other postharvest treatments are briefly described and discussed. This review will provide an important information on the utilization of 1-MCP to prolong shelf-life in various climacteric fruits and help in the development of protocols for unregistered genotypes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study was conducted to identify reliable science-based maturity indices for 'Lamb Hass' avocado fruit and evaluate the effect of harvest maturity on the fruit postharvest performance. Fruits were harvested from outside and inside canopy positions at early and mid-season for quality assessment. The results showed that the canopy position had a highly significant effect (p <.001) on all maturity parameters: dry matter (DM) content, moisture content (MC) and oil content (OC). The outside canopy fruit were more mature (30% DM, 70% MC, 14.9% OC) than those harvested from the inside canopy (28.9% DM, 71.1% MC, 11.75% OC) at minimum maturity. However, fruit DM and MC did not differ significantly (p >.05) between the early and mid-season fruit, whilst significant differences in OC were found between the two harvesting stages. In both harvesting stages, the canopy positions did not affect the rate of fruit mass loss. Nonetheless, the overall analysis showed that early season fruit had a significantly (p <.001) higher fruit mass loss rate than the mid-season fruit. Notably, fruit maturity did not have a significant effect (p >.05) on the fruit softening rate as insignificant differences between the two harvesting stages were observed. In both the harvesting stages, inside canopy fruit were characterized by a higher concentration of mannoheptulose and perseitol than the outside canopy fruit. The early and mid-season fruit also differed significantly (p <.05) in phenolic content; with the mid-season fruit having a high phenolic content (2.7 µm/g) than the early season fruit (1.8 µm/g), suggesting the possibility of increased mesocarp discolouration with the advancement in maturity. These findings will be a valuable tool to assist growers in assessing fruit readiness for harvest and understanding the influence of maturity on the fruit postharvest behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mango is the third most important fruit in the tropics due to its nutritional properties and delicious flavor. The fruit is exceptionally perishable due to its climacteric nature, which decreases the quality and shelf-life. Preserving fruit quality and preventing losses during postharvest is one of the critical solutions in sustaining human dietary demands. Postharvest treatments such as 1-Methylcyclopropene, edible coatings, and hot water treatment have shown to be effective in preserving fruit quality. However, developing environmental-friendly postharvest technologies that ensure the safety of consumers remains a challenge. Gaseous ozone, controlled atmosphere (CA), and pulsed electric field (PEF) are some of the emerging technologies with great potential for the mango fruit industry. The use of such technologies has been demonstrated to be effective in maintaining the sensory, nutritional, and physicochemical quality of the mango fruit. However, the mode of action of the emerging technologies is not yet understood. This review provides of an overview of various postharvest techniques used to preserve mango fruit quality. The potential of the emerging postharvest technologies to maintain mango fruit quality during storage and shelf-life is also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Effect of canopy position on rind biochemical properties of 'Marsh' grapefruit during postharvest non-chilling cold storage was evaluated on fruit harvested from different orchard locations. Inside canopy (IC) and outside canopy (OC) fruits were harvested at commercial maturity from two commercial farms located at KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) and Limpopo (LMP), South Africa, during two seasons. Rind biochemical analyses including color indices, total phenolic concentration, and sugars were performed on harvested grapefruit after Weeks 0, 3, 6, and 9 of cold storage at 7.5 ± 0.5°C. Canopy position showed a high significant (p <.001) effect on rind biochemicals while significant (p <.05) influence of orchard locations was observed on the same parameters. Reducing sugars were more concentrated in IC fruit harvested from both orchard location than OC fruit at Weeks 0 and 3, but inverse results occurred at Weeks 6 and 9. Orchard location significantly (p <.001) influenced vitamin C (14.4, 14.2, 14.4, 14.8 g kg−1) and (12.3, 16.1, 15.9, 14.6 g kg−1) of fruit rind at Weeks 0, 3, 6, and 9 from KZN and LMP, respectively. This study revealed that canopy position can influence rind biochemical properties of 'Marsh' grapefruit during non-chilling postharvest cold storage. However, further studies are required to formulate and provide the citrus industries with adequate advice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

1-methylcyclopropene (1-MCP) extends shelf-life of banana fruit, however, it induces uneven ripening. The strong effect 1-MCP has on ethylene receptors probably condition the fruit to ripen unevenly. Combined application of 1-MCP and ethephon has been reported to alleviate this negative effect. However, limited work reported the effect of the treatment at cold storage. Hence, the present study determined whether the combined application of 1-MCP and ethylene prolongs banana green-life during cold storage and induces uniform ripening during shelf-life. The study comprised four treatments: control (untreated), gaseous 1-MCP at 400 nL L−1 and combination of 400 nL L−1 1-MCP with liquid ethephon at 50 or 100 µL L−1 concentrations. The treatments were arranged in a completely randomized design (CRD) with 4 replicates. The treated fruit were cold stored at 14°C for 30 d and thereafter 23°C to simulate shelf-life for 9 d. The results showed that 400 nL L−1 1-MCP and combined with 50 and 100 µL L−1 ethephon prolonged green-life and delayed ripening during cold storage compared to the control. In addition, there was more softening, yellow color development, and accumulation of soluble sugars in fruit treated with 1-MCP+ethephon compared to 1-MCP during shelf-life. The combined application of 1-MCP and ethylene is an effective strategy that prolongs banana green-life during cold storage and induces uniform ripening during shelf-life. This strategy has potential to be used when banana fruit are exported to distant markets, since it also prolongs green-life for a long time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study evaluated the feasibility of using bio-markers to develop statistical models for predicting time to maturity of avocado fruit. The experiment used ‘Mendez#1ʹ and ‘Hass’ as model cultivars. Fruit was sampled bi-weekly from two positions within the tree canopy, namely, inside and outside canopy. Nine fruits per canopy position were sampled from fifteen trees of each cultivar. Mesocarp dry matter content (DM), oil content (OC), D-mannoheptulose and perseitol were assessed from 182 to 294 days after full bloom. Simple and multiple linear regression models were successfully developed to predict the maturity parameters of ‘Mendez#1ʹ and ‘Hass’ avocado fruit. Oil content was the most reliable index for predicting the DM due to the strongest positive and significant correlation (r = 0.76; p < .001). Furthermore, OC remained the only best fit in the DM model after backward elimination that was performed. The DM and oil content (OC) were the most successful variables with a strongest positive and significant (r > 0.7; p < .001) correlation with the number of days to reach maturity, suggesting that these parameters can be used to predict the days to maturity. Therefore, a farmer who keep a record of time after full bloom can use the number of days to predict DM and OC, before starting actual maturity tests. The predictive models from this study can be used to predict OC, DM and time (days) to maturity. D-mannoheptulose and perseitol had non-significant predictive values (p > .05), thus did not fit in both models of predicting avocado maturity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]