MAP can be used for storage of fully ripe strawberries

In order to have better shelf life, strawberry fruit are usually picked at an unripe stage with red colour covering 3/4 of the fruit surface. Consumer quality of these fruit is usually unfavourable. Ripe fruit have better quality attributes but a shorter shelf life. Strawberries in Serbia are mostly produced for local market which enables producers to pick them at a more advanced ripeness stage. Modified atmosphere packaging (MAP) enables extended shelf life of fruits. The objective of this research was to investigate how MAP influences quality attributes of fully ripe strawberries from organic and conventional production including prevention of rotting and bruising. Fully ripe fruit of cv. ?Senga Sengana? from organic production and cv. ?Arosa? from conventional were divided into 4 replications per treatment, with each replication containing 1 kg of fruit. The treatments were: A. Fruit pre cooled to 2 ?C and placed in MAP (transmission rates: O2 530 cc/m2/day and CO2 4200 cc/m2/day at 23 ?C, Xtend?, Stepac). B. Fruit placed in MAP without pre cooling. C. Pre cooled and cold stored fruit without MAP as a control. All fruit were cold stored for 5 days at 1?C. After removal from cold store and MAP, fruit were kept at room temperature for 24 h for shelf life. Laboratory analyses were comprised of fruit firmness, total soluble solids and titratable acidity. Also, fruit were evaluated for the percentage of rotten, bruised and healthy fruit. Results with ?Arosa? showed better firmness of MAP - treated fruit regardless if these were pre cooled or not (12.36 and 11.97 N respectively) compared with the control (11.39 N). Research also showed much lower percentage of rotten and bruised fruit if protected by MAP during storage, especially if fruit were not pre cooled. These results prove that MAP can be used for storage of fully ripe strawberries. ? SourcesMODIFIED ATMOSPHERE PACKAGING OF FULLY RIPE STRAWBERRIESMagazin, N.(*), Keserovi?, Z., ?abilovski, R., Mili?, B., Dori?, M. and Manojlovi?, M. nmagazin@polj.uns.ac.rsUniversity of Novi Sad, Faculty of agriculture, Trg Dositeja Obradovica 8, 21000 Novi Sad, SerbiaCA MA 2013, XI International Controlled & Modified Atmosphere Research Conference, Trani (Italy), 3-7 June 2013 The pictures are by Perfotec