Dragon fruits (red and white pulp) were treated with pre‐storage treatments salicylic acid (SA)‐2 mM and chitosan‐1%. Quality and shelf life of fruits were judged by changes in physicochemical parameters during 21 days of storage (6°C ± 1°C and 70% ± 5% RH). Results indicated that SA reduced weight loss by 1/3rd and postharvest fruit decay by half in both color types. In vitro studies observed that the lesion areas and disease symptoms of the fruit were lowest in the SA treatment. The respiration rate was 0.7 times lower than that of the control after 21 days. In addition, SA maintained better freshness, peel color, firmness, ascorbic acid, phenolics content, flavonoids content, and antioxidant activity till 21 days. In SA‐treated red and white‐pulped fruit, the retention of phenols (57.95 and 36.16 mg/100 g, respectively) and flavonoids (49.08 and 26.95 mg/100 g, respectively) was 11% greater than that of the control, while the radical scavenging activity was 13% greater (37.76% and 20.15%, respectively) on 21 days. Chitosan showed a promising effect on minimizing weight loss, but the loss of phenolic compounds, antioxidant activity and spoilage was higher than SA‐treated fruits. Thus, SA combined with low temperature could be a potential postharvest treatment for preserving the quality of dragon fruit up to 21 days.
Lata et al. (Sun,) studied this question.