The Effects of Methyl Jasmonate, Cytokinin and Lavender Oil Applications on Postharvest Physiology in Apricot Fruit (Prunus armeniaca L.)

Apricot (Prunus armeniaca L.) belonging to Rosaceae family is stone fruit. it is enjoyed to be consumed as fresh fruit by many people, but also is preferred as juice, dried fruit and jam. Turkey has an important place in apricot production in the world. The postharvest life of apricot is limited as fresh fruit. In the study, Bebeko apricot variety was used, the fruits were grown in Van ecological conditions and harvested at harvesting maturity. In the current study, we investigated the effect of Methyl Jasmonate (0.2 mM), cytokinin (5 ppm), lavender oil (1000 ppm) , MeJA (0.2 mM) + lavender oil (1000 ppm) and cytokinin (5 ppm) + lavender oil (1000 ppm) on apricot quality parameters such as pH, titratable acidity (TA), soluble solids content (SSC), skin color, antioxidant capacity, total phenolics, respiration rate and ethylene production as well as determined how long the treatments applied to apricot increase storage period. Our findings suggest that the treatments applied to fruit have a beneficial impact on fruit quality comparing to untreated fruit. As a result, MeJA+Lavander oil treated fruit was found to maintain the quality of the product for 35 days; on the other hand, other treatments were found to maintain the quality of the product for 25 days.