Effects of Hydro-Cooling, Chemicals, and Packaging Treatments on Refrigerated-Life and Quality of Sweet Cherries and in vitro Effects of Chemicals on Selected Fungi Responsible for Fruit Deterioration

As the population tends to urbanize, the potential consumer market of fresh produce becomes distant from the producing farm. This distance brings to growers and handlers the problems of how to keep their fresh products unspoiled after harvest and during transit period of shipping, and how they can be delivered to the specified destination without substantial deterioration. It is the common interest of fruit growers, shippers, wholesalers, and retailers that the shelf-life of fresh fruit be prolonged to increase sales. Sweet cherries are one of the important fruit crops in Utah. Being highly perishable, fresh sweet cherries have relatively short storage life after harvest . It is known that the approximate limit for the successful commercial storage of fresh sweet cherries is about 10 days to 2 weeks only. A practicable measure for extending this storage limit has to be established so that the market may have fresh sweet cherries over a longer season and also be able to balance the time of plenty and the time of scarcity. Furthermore, the Utah grown cherries may find new outlets in the distant market. Thus the benefit will be shared by the grower, the seller, and the consumer. Metabolic breakdown and fungal deterioration are the two important factors which cause the spoilage of fruits. Studies have shown that with many perishable produces, precooling -- the prompt application of refrigeration prior 2 to normal storage or transportation is the key to successful storage. Hydro -cooling treatment is considered to be advantageous especially in Utah, where high temperature and low relative humidity predominate during the harvest season of sweet cherries. Post-harvest chemical and packaging treatments of sweet cherries are possible approaches on ext ending the keeping quality of the fruits concerned. With some of the antifungal agents available today, the fungi which cause fruit decay might be successfully controlled. As a matter of fact, new fungicides, antifungal antibiotics, and packaging films are continuously developed by the industries in the United States. Appropriate combination of these newly developed materials with hydro-cooling followed by refrigerated storage, coupled with in vitro study of the effects of chemicals on fruit decay organisms, might lead to an improvement in the storage life of sweet cherries. It was with this idea in mind that experiments were conducted to study the effects of hydro-cooling, chemicals, and packaging treatments on preserving fresh sweet cherries and also in vitro effects of chemicals on certain fungi responsible for fruit deterioration