After harvest, kiwifruit is susceptible to physiological disorders, such as fruit shriveling and fruit decay during shelf life.Alginate coating has therefore garnered interest as a method to control the incidence of these disorders in kiwifruit during postharvest handling.In this study, we aimed to evaluate the effects of different preharvest alginate coating concentrations on fruit quality attributes, physiological disorders, and phenolic compounds, as well as to examine the relationships between physiological disorders and response variables in 'Haegeum' kiwifruit (Actinidia chinensis) throughout its shelf life.The severity of fruit decay and shriveling was highest in 0% alginate coating treatment, compared with other concentrations.Fruit weight loss was also highest in 0% alginate-coated fruit, compared with 1% and 2% alginate-coated fruit.The 2% alginate coating treatment significantly reduced ethylene production and respiration rates.Flesh firmness was lowest in 1% alginate, compared with the other treatments.The contents of 4-hydroxybenzoic acid, epicatechin, chlorogenic acid, and total carotenoids were highest in the 1% alginate-coated fruit.While decay was positively correlated with procyanidin B2, fruit shriveling was positively correlated with ascorbic acid, total phenolic compounds, fresh weight loss, ethylene production, respiration rate, and peel redness during 14 days of shelf life.Overall, our results showed that alginate coating can reduce the incidence of decay and shriveling by suppressing the ethylene production and respiration rates in 'Haegeum' kiwifruit during shelf life.
Park et al. (Wed,) studied this question.