Changes of peel color and fruit quality in navel orange fruits under different storage methods

Abstract Fruit color is one important traits that largely determine the quality of navel orange fruits. The goal of this work was to evaluate the influence of ventilating warehouse (VW), mechanical refrigeration warehouse (MRW) and mountain evaporative cooling ventilating warehouse (MECW) storage on the quality and peel color in navel orange. The weight loss rate, decay rate, total soluble solids (TSS), titratable acidity (TA) and vitamin C (Vc) content of fruit were measured. The color index of the skin was determined by a chromameter, and the carotenoids from the skin were determined by high performance liquid chromatography. During storage, the weight loss rate and rot rate of navel orange fruit gradually increased, and TSS, TA and Vc gradually degraded. The weight loss rate and decay rate of fruits stored in MRW and MECW were lower than those of fruits stored in VW, and the contents of TSS, TA and VC were higher than those of fruits stored in VW. However, the color change of VW and MECW fruits was better than that of MRW fruits. The chlorophyll content of VW and MECW fruits was significantly lower than that of MRW fruits, and the carotenoid content of VW and MECW fruits was significantly higher than that of MRW fruits in the late storage period. Our study suggests that MECW had the best storage effect among the three storage methods, which provided a theoretical basis for the practical application of MECW in citrus fruit storage.