This experiment was carried out during two successive 2013 & 2014 seasons in the post-harvest
laboratory of Agricultural Development System (ADS) project in Faculty of Agric. Cairo University, Giza
Governorate, Egypt to investigate the efficiency of using some natural substances i.e., gelatin at 1,2,4 %;
lemongrass oil at 0.25, 0.5 % and peppermint oil at 5 and,10%, beside untreated fruits as control on storability
of Zaghloul date palm fruits and their quality under cold storage (0.0 °C ± 2 and 90 – 95 % R.H.). It was quite
evident that two conflicted trends were detected with the advancement of storage duration during both seasons.
Hence, percentage of (fruit weight loss, decay, fruit juice total soluble solids and total sugars were increased,
however flesh firmness, titratable acidity % and tannins contents were relatively reduced. Moreover, the
response of different Zaghloul fruits measurements to various investigated dipping treatments varied not only
from one treatment to other from one hand, but also each characteristics reflected its own trend from the other
side. So, it could be generally concluded that all dipping treatments significantly decreased percentage of both
fruit weight loss and decay below control (water dipping), whereas 0.50 % lemongrass oil treatment was the
superior, while 1 % gelatin ranked last. On the other hand, fruit juice total acidity was slightly responded by
different treatments and difference was more pronounced particularly with both 0.25 and 0.50 % lemongrass oil
during two seasons. In addition, fruit flesh firmness, fruit juice total sugars and tannins content did not
significantly respond to various treatments. Meanwhile, fruit juice total soluble solids% of Zaghloul date palm
fruits showed different considerable influence to most investigated treatments in both seasons of study. |
