Research on Influence of Some Post-harvest Change of Peach Genotypes

In this experiment we studied the influence of storage conditions on some quality indices of two peach varieties present on the market in western part of Romania.The biological material was represented by two varieties of peach, fruit which is sold on market in western Romania, having the following origin Turcia and Chile. During the experiment the following parameters were studied: fruit’s dimensions (diameter, fruit length, circumference, weight, and fruit color), flesh firmness, acidity vegetable juice, soluble carbohydrate content and dry matter. To determine fruit firmness we used a digital penetrometer. The percentage of dry fruit pulp was determined using Kern thermobalance. Storage conditions were: temperature 4 °C, for 5 and 10 days.After 10 days of storage, due to post-maturation processes, especially respiration (degradation of the organic substrate) there was a reduction of the circumference, the diameter of the fruits and their color as changed. As regarding the biochemical characteristics, after 5 days of conservation can be seen a reduction in fruit firmness, however there is an increase of soluble carbohydrate content, while vegetable juice acidity and dry matter percentage recorded no significant changes. In case of biochemical parameters after 10 days of conservation there is a continuous trend to increase the soluble carbohydrate content due to conversion of starch into glucose after enzymatic hydrolysis processes and also there is a sharp decrease in fruit firmness, but also a slight decrease of the juice acidity from the pulp of the fruit.