Babak Jamshidi; Leila Pourhosseini; Mahmoud Reza Ramezanpour; Seyed Vahid Alavi; Amir Lashgari
Abstract
Introduction
Increasing the shelf life of oranges after harvesting while maintaining its quality is very important. In addition, preventing waste production and increase the ...
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Introduction
Increasing the shelf life of oranges after harvesting while maintaining its quality is very important. In addition, preventing waste production and increase the shelf life of this fruit along with maintaining its quality is very important. Citrus fruits in Iran have the highest production of tree products with the production of more than 4 million tons, in the country. Mazandaran province (North of Iran), contains about 50% of orange orchards of Iran, which first ranks in orange production and the cultivated area of this product in the country. Plant nutrition is very important and the use of potassium nitrate, potassium phosphide and calcium nitrate can increase the quantitative and qualitative yield of oranges. The use of wax coating increased the shelf life of oranges in the warehouse, on the other hand, it improved their appearance quality.
Material and Methods
This two year research (2019-2021) was carried out as factorial based on randomized complete block design with three replications in Mazandaran province, Iran, on orange fruits cv. Thomson Novel. Experimental factors were consisted of four levels of spraying ( 1. control, 2. calcium nitrate foliar spraying (2 mg.l-1), 3. potassium nitrate foliar spraying (3 mg.l-1), and 4. potassium phosphide foliar spraying (3 mg.l-1), and 9 storage coating levels (control, Nylon, Deco wax (based on petroleum polyethylene), Xeda wax (with natural carnauba gum base), Poshan Emulsion Wax (with paraffin base), Deco wax+ Rural TS fungicide (2 mg.l-1), wax remover + Rural TS fungicide (2 mg.l-1), Poshan emulsion wax + Rural TS fungicide (2 mg.l-1), and nylon + Rural TS fungicide (2 mg.l-1)).
Results and Discussion
The results showed that the nutritional treatments as well as the coating treatments increased the yield and quality of oranges. The highest fruit weight in 45 days and 90 days after storage was seen in the interaction of Rural TS fungicide + nylon + potassium nitrate which was the same statistic group with interaction of Rural TS fungicide treatments + nylon + potassium phosphide, interaction of Xeda wax + potassium nitrate, interaction of Xeda wax + potassium phosphide and also interaction of nylon + potassium phosphide. Rural TS fungicide + nylon as well as Xeda wax increased the traits studied in this research and also improved the quantitative and qualitative yield of oranges compared to other treatments. Therefore, it is recommended to apply potassium phosphide and potassium nitrate treatments along with nylon and Xeda wax. In addition, the application of rural TS 2 fungicide in thousand decreased the diseases and the percentage of decay along with the wax coating treatments compared to the control. The increase of fruit yield and quality can be attributed to the effect of potassium on the entry of carbohydrates or the synthesis of plant regulators in young fruits. Fruit coatings with wax can effectively maintain the quality of these perishable materials after harvesting and increase their useful life. In another research on Valencia oranges, using different commercial wax coatings, it was observed that the coating Wax-containing helped preserve the appearance of fruits compared to other coatings.
Conclusion
The application of coatings treatments by caused to reducing the amount of decay and diseases, and kept the consumer's acceptance of orange fruits in storage for a longer period of time and increased the appearance quality of oranges in storage conditions, but among the applied treatments, rural fungicide treatment TS 2 ppm + Xeda wax increased the traits studied in this research and also improved the quantitative and qualitative yield of oranges compared to other treatments. Therefore, it is recommended to apply potassium phosphide and potassium nitrate treatments along with Xeda wax.
