One week postharvest acclimation is effcient in reducing Granny Smith apple scald incidence

Superfcial scald is one of the most serious postharvest physiological disorders that can afect apples after a prolonged cold storage period. This study investigated the impact of pre- and post-harvest climatic variations on superfcial scald in a susceptible apple cultivar. Fruit batches with contrasting phenotypes for superfcial scald incidence were identifed among several years of ?Granny Smith? fruit production. The ?low scald? year pre-harvest climate was characterised by a warm period followed by a sudden decrease in temperature, playing the part of an in vivo acclimation to cold storage. This was associated with many abiotic stress responsive genes which were induced in fruit peel. In particular 48 Heat Shock Proteins (HSPs) and 5 Heat Shock transcription Factors (HSFs) were strongly induced at harvest when scald incidence was low. For ?high scald? year, a post-harvest acclimation(*) of 1 week was efficient in reducing scald incidence. Expression profles of stress related genes were afected by the acclimation treatment and indicate fruit physiological adaptations to cold storage. The identifed stressresponsive genes, and in particular HSPs, could be useful indicators of the fruit physiological status to predict the risk of scald occurrence as early as harvest.(*) Acclimation consisted in 1 week storage at 8?C before transfer to classic cold chambers at 2?C up to 3, 4 and 5 months ?SourcePre-harvest climate and post-harvest acclimation to cold prevent from superficial scald development in Granny Smith applesMathieu, Marc; Cournol Maryline; Hanteville Sylvain; Poisson Anne-Sophie; Guillou Marie-Charlotte, Sandra Pelletier, Fran?ois Laurens, Christine Tessier, Claude Coureau, Jean-Pierre Renou, Micka?l Delaire & Mathilde Orsel?Scientific Reports (Nature Publisher Group); London Tomo 10, N.? 1, (2020)DOI:10.1038/s41598-020-63018-3https://search.proquest.com/openview/3e1d411ea88d5703760f784745529aa3/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=2041939Picture 1 is part of Figure 3 of the original paper, illustrating the transcriptomic analysis at harvest for fruit batches with contrasted phenotype for superficial scald. Picture 2 is by?elmercurio.com