Background: Shelf life is strongly influenced by respiration rate; higher respiration accelerates carbohydrate degradation and cellular damage. Strategies to suppress respiration commonly involve combining low-temperature storage with additional physical treatments, often increasing production costs. Consequently, alternative postharvest approaches are needed to regulate respiration efficiently. Objectives: This study aimed to evaluate the effects of intermittent warming on respiration rate and selected quality attributes of the GP3 pineapple clone. Methods: GP3 pineapple fruits were stored for 8 days under two temperature regimes: (1) constant storage at 7 °C and (2) storage at 7 °C followed by transfer to room temperature on day 3 for 3 days. Observations included respiration rate, fruit temperature, internal browning, electrolyte leakage, total phenolic content, ascorbic acid, weight loss, shell color index, mold incidence, shell dehydration, soluble solid content (SSC), titratable acidity (TA), and SSC/TA ratio. Results: Intermittent warming significantly reduced respiration rate (p = .01). Importantly, the temperature-shift treatment did not induce detrimental changes in measured fruit quality parameters during the 8-day storage period. Although transferring fruit to room temperature temporarily increased weight loss, no significant differences were observed after two additional days of storage. Conclusion: These findings suggest that intermittent warming may serve as a cost-effective postharvest strategy to modulate respiration without compromising fruit quality.
Chandra et al. (2026) studied this question.