Climaterio en melón según estado de madurez postcosecha

Esta publicación está ya en la web y en la revista Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture. También contiene varias figuras de información suplementaria. Es un trabajo de colaboración entre nuestro equipo de trabajo en la UPCT y dos investigadores iraníes más nuestros colaboradores en el IRTA. En la foto los investigadores de la campaña en que se realizó el experimento principal: Profs. MM Jowkar, J.P. Fernández-Trujillo y M.K. Souri, Ing. C. Miranda y Dr. J.M. Obando-Ulloa.

Obando-Ulloa, J.M., Jowkar, M.M., Moreno, E., Souri, M.K., Martínez, J.A., Bueso, M.C., Monforte, A.J., Fernández-Trujillo, J.P. 2009. Discrimination of climacteric and non-climacteric fruit at harvest and at senescence stage by quality traits. J. Sci. Food Agric. 89: 1743-1753. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jsfa.3651

Resumen

BACKGROUND: This paper characterizes the quality traits at harvest and the changes associated with fruit senescence based on fruit physiological behaviour (climacteric or non-climacteric) found in a collection of near-isogenic lines (NILs) of melon (Cucumis melo L.). Data from both stages of postharvest development were analyzed by univariate and multivariate statistical analysis.
RESULTS: The principal components and random forest analyses of the fruit quality traits allowed the best classification of the NILs by time (harvest, senescence), or by climacteric behaviour at harvest, but not at the senescent stage. The overall quality profile of the non-climacteric senescent melons was in general very different from that of the climacteric ones and agreed with a longer storage life. Most of the taste quality traits (individual sugars or sucrose equivalents, titratable acidity and the citric, oxalacetic, glutamic and succinic acids) and the traits related to skin, flesh and juice colour parameters (chroma, hue angle) helped to distinguish the climacteric NILs from the non-climacteric ones independently of the time considered.
CONCLUSIONS: The time had a stronger effect on quality than the physiological behaviour. The discrimination by climacteric or non-climacteric behaviour was usually better at harvest than at the senescent stage irrespective of the methodology used. Principal component analysis was the best multivariate method to discriminate by time and physiological behaviour followed by random forest and linear discriminant analysis.
Keywords: near-isogenic lines; fruit composition; texture; sugars; organic acids; fruit over-ripening.

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