2011 Volume 10 Issue 1 Pages 93-100
The influence of dropping impact sustained before storage on occurrence of rot and rind disorder of stored lemons was examined. On dropping test, the incidence of rot and rind disorder was closely associated with impact energy. The rate was dependent on the area of impact, with impact on the fruit apex inducing the most rot generation. We measured all impact that lemon fruit received throughout the entire harvesting and processing procedures and investigated the incidence of rot and rind disorder in stored lemons. Most shock was induced by falling into the collecting plate at the end of the sorting line, and subsequently during the brushing and drying process. The amount of impact occurring during truck transportation and discharge at the packinghouse was not especially high. The rate of incidence of fruit rot increased with the length of the sorting line. A rot incidence model was constructed to predict the incidence of rot in lemons during sorting using storage time and impact energy as variables. The simulated and the measured incidences of rot showed a high correlation. It was thought that rot generation after harvesting could be controlled by reducing the shock, but sustained by the fruit, the reduction was not sufficient. Therefore, it was suggested that technology to control rot generation could be established by combining prestorage conditioning and packaging films.
