Postharvest ultraviolet-C (UV-C) treatment reduces decay and maintains quality of bell peppers

Abstract

The effects of pre-storage UV-C illumination on fungal decay and postharvest quality of California Wonder type bell peppers were investigated. Fruits were exposed to UV-C dosages at 1.3, 2.4 and 3.6 kJ.m -2 and stored at 8°C temperature with 90-95% relative humidity for 38 days. Untreated fruits were used as control. Changes in weight, titratable acidity, total soluble solids, decay and respiration rates of bell peppers were examined during storage. All UV-C dosages tested reduced the percentage of decay compared to control. Most promising UV-C dose was found to be as 3.6 kJ.m -2 in controlling storage decays in bell peppers. Besides, respiration rate of control fruits were higher than those of irradiated bell peppers within 24 h at 20°C. But, by the end of the 7 days at 20°C, CO2 production rates were relatively similar.

Journal of Plant Protection Research

“…UV light is a viable alternative method to control postharvest diseases of fruits and vegetables, by acting directly on pathogens or indirectly through the induction of defenses both in plants as well as in harvested products (Ben-Yehoshua et al 1992;Stevens et al 1996Stevens et al , 1998de Capdeville et al 2002;Romanazzi et al 2012;Gutiérrez et al 2016;Mohamed et al 2017;Valencia et al 2017). This light has shown promising performance to control decomposition and to extend shelf life of postharvested plant products (Nigro et al 1998;Vicente et al 2005;Nigroa and Ippolito 2016;Jin et al 2017;Karasahin Yildirim and Pekmezci 2017;Ortiz Araque et al 2018). The UV-C effects on B. cinerea were previously studied in fressia (Darras et al 2010), strawberry (Marquenie et al 2002(Marquenie et al , 2003Pan et al 2004;Janisiewicz et al 2016;Jin et al 2017), lettuce (Ouhibi et al 2015), peppers (Mercier et al 2001), tomatoes (Charles et al 2008a(Charles et al , b, c, d, 2009, grapes (Nigro et al 1998), and carrots (Mercier et al 1993(Mercier et al , 2000.…”