Artocarpus heterophyllus Lam. leaf extracts added to pectin-based edible coating for Alternaria sp. control in tomato

The use of pectin edible coatings has been receiving great attention due to their availability, non-toxic, and physicochemical properties. However, few reports showed their antifungal activity against phytopathogens such as Alternaria spp., one of the main causes of tomato production losses. This work was aimed to evaluate the effect of low methoxy pectin (LMP)-based coating with and without JLE, to control Alternaria sp. in fruit, including the study of tomato quality parameters behavior. LMP showed dose-dependent activity against two Alternaria spp. strains. JLE with 243.6 ± 6.3 GAE/g dried weight of total soluble polyphenols and 20.6 ± 1.1 RE/g dried weight of total flavonoids, and high antioxidant capacity caused 39.9% of growth inhibition. The interaction of polyphenols with coating (PGW) was evidenced by FTIR. During in vivo preventive treatments (12 days, 20 °C, 75–80% RH), a decrease of infection severity and fruit firmness improvement were observed. PGW decreases the maturation rate of fruit Cordinate a * and hue angle presented the greatest changes. According this behavior, the use of LMP coatings added with JLE could be a convenient strategy to control Alternaria spp. and improve the tomato shelf-life.