Improving Postharvest Storage Quality of Cucumber Fruit by ...

HORTSCIENCE 54(11):2005–2014. 2019. https://doi.org/10.21273/HORTSCI14461-19

Improving Postharvest Storage Qualityof Cucumber Fruit by ModifiedAtmosphere Packaging andBiomaterials_Ibrahim Kahramano�glu and Serhat UsanmazDepartment of Horticultural Production and Marketing, Faculty ofAgricultural Sciences and Technologies, European University of Lefke,Northern Cyprus, via Mersin 10 Turkey, 99780

Additional index words. chilling injury, decay incidence, fruit firmness, lemongrass oilapplication, propolis extract, sensory quality, weight loss

Abstract. The present study was conducted with the aim of increasing storage duration ofcucumber fruits by using eco-friendly edible biomaterials and nanotechnology. Hence,the effects of postharvest-applied lemongrass oil (LO) and propolis extract (PEx), aloneor in combination with modified atmosphere packaging (MAP), on the weight loss, fruitfirmness, sensory index, chilling injury (CI), decay incidence (DI), and soluble solidconcentration (SSC) of cucumber fruits were tested. Two different doses (0.2% and0.5%) of both LO and PEx were tested in present study. Application of LO and PEx wasperformed by dipping the fruits into the solutions at 21 ± 1 8C for 3 minutes; after dryingfor 30 minutes, fruits were transferred to a cold room and kept at 4.5 ± 0.5 8C and 95%relative humidity (RH). Studies were continued for 24 days, and quality parameters weremeasured at 4-day intervals. Two-day shelf-life simulation was also applied to fruits aftereach interval, and the same quality parameters were observed. Results suggest that thecombination of MAP bags with LO or PEx treatment provides better conditions forpostharvest storage of cucumbers and that storage duration might be extended to 20days. Fruits treated with LO or PEx and stored inMAP bagsmaintainedweight and SSC,were firmer, showed lower DI, and expressed lower CI (P < 0.05) throughout storage.

Agrochemicals play a vital role in con-trolling pests and disease and have an impor-tant role in the preservation of the postharvestquality of fresh produce. Misuse or excessiveuse of agrochemicals may cause significanthazards on human health (Coulibaly et al.,2011). Fungicides are of great importance forpreserving fresh produce during storage.However, agrochemical residues in freshproduce have been the subject of contentiouspublic discussions through the world amongconsumers, the media, and scientists (Kochet al., 2017). The acceptability of agrochem-icals is decreasing worldwide because ofpossible negative impacts on human health(Sharma et al., 2009). Therefore, developingalternatives to agrochemicals is an impor-tant subject for research. Current posthar-vest studies are mainly focusing on the useof biomaterials, including essential oils(EOs), edible coatings, and plant extractsto preserve storage quality in fresh produce(Silvestre et al., 2011). Previous studieshave described a number of successful bio-materials in postharvest storage studies, in-cluding chitosan (Adiletta et al., 2018;Guti�errez-Martínez et al., 2018; Sharifet al., 2015), EOs (Kahramano�glu 2019;

Pavela and Benelli 2016; Prakash et al.,2015), PEx (Kahramano�glu et al., 2018;€Ozdemir et al., 2010), plant extracts (Gattoet al., 2016; Obagwu and Korsten 2003),edible coatings (Dang et al., 2008; Panahiradet al., 2019; Saucedo-Pompa et al., 2009), andorganic salts (Troyo and Acedo, 2019). Inaddition, MAP is an important nanotechnol-ogy for maintaining postharvest quality andupgrade the storage duration of fresh produce(Caleb et al., 2013). It has been reported toreduce respiration, which prevents weightloss and protects quality, and also to preventCI and reduce microbial growth (Day, 2001;Gil et al., 1997).

Cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.) is aneconomically important crop; it is used forpickling and eaten fresh. Cucumber fruits area good source of antioxidants, magnesium,and vitamin C and are rich in dietary fiber(Shi et al., 2015). However, cucumber fruitshave a short storage duration, limited to lessthan 14 d due to loss of weight and firmness,discoloration, and fungal infections (Bahnasawyand Khater, 2014; Martin-Belloso and Fortuny,2011). EOs (i.e., cinnamon oil) and chitosanhave previously been tested and reported to haveinhibitory effects on fungal rot and preventweight loss on cucumber fruits (Carmo et al.,2008; de Sousa et al., 2012). Cold storage at5 �C (Wang and Zhu, 2017), short-term hotwater application (Nasef, 2018), ozone treat-ment (Glowacz et al., 2015), and MAP

(Manjunatha and Anurag, 2014) were alsotested and found to be effective in preventingcucumber senescence. To the best of theauthors’ knowledge, no previous studies havebeen conducted on the effects of LO andpropolis on the postharvest quality of cucum-ber fruits. MAP was previously tested andfound to be effective, but the combination ofLO and propolis has not been tested oncucumber fruits. The objective of presentstudy was to test the effects of postharvest-applied LO and propolis, alone or in combi-nation with MAP, on the weight loss, fruitfirmness, sensory index, CI, DI, and SSC oncucumber fruit stored at 5 �C.

Materials and Methods

Cucumber fruits (Cucumis sativus L.‘Falconstar’) in the current study were har-vested at commercial maturity (firm, turgid,dark green, and succulent) from a greenhouselocated in Yedidalga, Lefke province, innorthern Cyprus. The fruits were transportedto the laboratory within 1 h and selected forconsistent maturity and appearance; fruitswith any mechanical or biological damagewere not included.

Lemongrass (Melissa officinalis L.) oiland propolis extract were tested as biomate-rials for preservation of postharvest quality ofcucumber fruits. One hundred percent pureLO (Olimpos Melissa) was procured fromAltug Medical Ltd (Denizli, Turkey). Thematerial was first dissolved in 70% ethanol(10/90 v/v). Pure water was then added to thesolution as suggested by Kahramano�glu et al.(2018) to prepare 0.2% and 0.5% doses ofLO. Crude propolis was collected fromBa�glık€oy province, northern Cyprus. Prepa-ration of the 0.2% and 0.5% doses of PEx wasperformed by the same means as LO.

In addition to the biomaterials, aMAP bagwas also tested. The bags were built fromlow-density polyethylene film with semiper-meable characteristics and were procuredfrom Dekatrend (Trendlife, Bursa, Turkey).The MAP bags were designed to work with5 ± 0.25 kg of cucumber fruits. The bags aresealed with atmospheric air after filling withcucumber fruits and capable of regulatinginner air composition to �10% to 15% CO2

and 5% to 10% O2. The packaging materialallows gas transfer and venting of excessiveethylene gas and RH. Before marketing theMAP bags, manufacturers perform studies todetermine transfer capacity and crop meta-bolism to achieve favorable gas concentra-tions for successful preservation of theproducts. After sealing the bags, cucumberfruits continue respiration, and the O2 concen-tration in the headspace decreases while theCO2 concentration increases until reaching apreviously determined equilibrium. Therefore,respiration of the product and the microbialactivity slow down, improving the storagequality and duration of the crops.

The fruits were randomly divided into 10groups (by number of treatments) of 192fruits. Thus, these 192 fruits were dividedinto four equal groups (replications). The

Received for publication 6 Aug. 2019. Acceptedfor publication 30 Aug. 2019._I.K. is thecorrespondingauthor.E-mail: [email protected].

HORTSCIENCE VOL. 54(11) NOVEMBER 2019 2005

| POSTHARVEST BIOLOGY AND TECHNOLOGY

treatments of present study were as follows:1) control, 2) LO 0.2%, 3) LO 0.5%, 4) PEx0.2%, 5) PEx 0.5%, 6) Control +MAP, 7) LO0.2% + MAP, 8) LO 0.5% + MAP, 9) PEx0.2% + MAP and 10) PEx 0.5% + MAP.Application of the LO and PEx was per-formed by dipping the fruits into givensolutions at 21 ± 1 �C for 3 min. Afterdipping, fruits were kept at ambient roomtemperature (21 ± 1 �C) to dry the surfacemoisture by fan and cooled for 30 min; afterthis procedure, bagging into MAP was per-formed for the fruits in MAP treatmentgroups. After the completion of the allapplications, fruits (eight from each of fourreplications) were transferred to a cold roomand kept at 4.5 ± 0.5 �C and 95% RH. Studies

were continued for 24 d, and a total of 32fruits were taken out from each treatment at4-d intervals (4, 8, 12, 16, 20, and 24 d) tomeasure the quality parameters. Half ofthese 32 fruits were measured at that time,and other half was kept at room tempera-tures (24 ± 1 �C and 65% RH) to simulateSL and then measured. Fruit weight of eachindividual fruit was performed and notedbefore the experiments. In addition, 16fruits were selected at the beginning ofthe experiments, and fruit firmness andSSC were measured and noted. At each4-d interval, fruit weight, fruit firmness,SSC, CI, decay, and sensory quality weremeasured according to the followingmethods.

A digital scale (±0.01 g) was used todetermine the weights of each individualfruit. The initial and final weights were usedto calculate weight loss. First, final weightwas subtracted from initial weight to de-termine the weight lost; this was then dividedby initial weight. The result was multipliedby 100 to determine weight loss (%). Fruitfirmness (kg·cm–2) was qualified by usinghand penetrometer. Measurements were per-formed from four distinct locations aroundthe median of each fruit. SSC of each fruitwas measured with a hand refractometer as %Brix. Fruits were cut from the midpoint andsqueezed by hand to obtain juice for themeasurement of SSC. CI index of the cucum-ber fruits was measured by using the 0 to 4

Fig. 1. Effects of different treatments on the weight loss of cucumber fruits during 24 d of storage. (A) Four days after storage (DAS), (B) 8 DAS, (C) 12 DAS, (D)16 DAS, (E) 20 DAS, and (F) 24 DAS. LO = lemongrass oil; PEx = propolis extract; SL = shelf life. Values followed by the same letter or letters within thesame storage time are not significantly different according to Duncan’s multiple range test at P # 0.05. Small letters are used for the comparison of storageduration in cold rooms, and capital letters are used for the SL periods.

2006 HORTSCIENCE VOL. 54(11) NOVEMBER 2019

scale reported by Dong et al. (2012), where 0represents no signs of either surface pitting ordark watery patches, and 1, 2, 3, and 4represent <25%, 25% to 50%, 51% to 75%,and >75%, respectively. The scale numberswere used in the following formula to calcu-late CI index:

CI Index =

P½ðCI ScaleÞ·ðnumberof fruit at that CIÞ�

4· total number of fruit ineach treatment

The CI index ranged from 0 to 1. Thefruits with a CI index of 0.4 or higher wereconsidered unacceptable for consumers. Sen-sory quality of cucumber fruits was evaluated

according to the recession stage by using the0 to 5 scale suggested by Han et al. (2015).Fruits’ firmness, color, freshness, smell, anddecay were evaluated to score the fruits; 0 =excellent quality, 1 = little damage, 2 = slightdamage, 3 = moderate damage (limitingmarketability), 4 = heavy damage (limitingedibility), and 5 = serious damage (inedible).The scores were used in the following for-mula to calculate sensory index: SI = [S(S ·Q)] /N, where S indicates the quantity of eachdegree, Q is the degree of decay, and Nrepresents the total number of cucumbers ineach treatment.

DI was observed according to the 0 to 3scale formula of Cao et al. (2011). The visualevaluation of the each fruit was performed by

using following scores: 0 = no decay, 1 =slight decay (#25%), 2 = moderate decay(25% < 50%), and 3 = severe decay (>50%).After scoring the fruits, the following formulawas used to quantify DI: DI = {[(1 · N1) +(2 · N2) + (3 · N3)] · 100 / (3 · N)}. In thisformula, N represents the total number of fruitmeasured, and N1, N2, and N3 were used toindicate the numbers of fruit showing theseverity of decay.

Raw experimental data were summa-rized in Microsoft Excel, and the compari-son of the effects of different treatments wasdetermined by subjecting the data to analy-sis of variance and the mean separation wasassessed with Duncan’s multiple range testat P # 0.05.

Fig. 2. Effects of different treatments on the firmness of cucumber fruits during 24 d of storage. (A) 4 DAS, (B) 8 DAS, (C) 12 DAS, (D) 16 DAS, (E) 20 DAS, and(F) 24 DAS. LO = lemongrass oil; PEx = propolis extract; SL = shelf life. Values followed by the same letter or letters within the same storage time are notsignificantly different according to Duncan’s multiple range test at P# 0.05. Small letters are used for the comparison of storage duration in cold rooms, andcapital letters are used for the SL periods.


Results

Weight loss is an important indicator ofthe postharvest quality of fresh produce. Re-sults of present study showed that untreatedcucumber fruits exhibit an increasing trendin weight loss during storage, reaching>25% in 24 d (Fig. 1). Moreover, it was alsoobserved that, transferring fruits into ambi-ent conditions for SL simulation (2 d) is alsocausing important weight loss. Among thetested biomaterials both PEx and LO werefound to be effective in preventing theweight loss. There were slight differencesamong the various doses of the test mate-rials, but these differences were not statisti-cally significant. When comparing the

biomaterials, PEx was found to have higherinfluence on the prevention of weight lossthan the LO. One of the most importantresults of present study is that MAP wasfound to have the highest impact on theprevention of weight loss. However, it wasalso observed that the combination of MAPwith the PEx or LO improved efficacy andreduced weight loss. In 4 d of storage,control fruits reached to 5.07% weight loss.Weight loss of fruits treated with differentdoses of PEx and LO varied from 2.75% to3.38%. In contrast, fruits stored in MAPbags demonstrated only 1.68% weight lossin 4 d of storage. Weight loss decreased tobetween 1.08% to 1.27% when MAP was

combined with PEx or LO. In addition tothese important results, another crucial find-ing is that fruits stored in MAP showedhigher weight loss under SL conditions thanfruits stored without MAP. Weight loss incucumber fruits showed a similar trendduring storage, and similar results obtained24 d after storage (DAS). At the end of theexperiments, the lowest weight loss (3.58%)was noted in MAP + 0.5% PEx application,was followed byMAP+ 0.5%LO andMAP+0.2% LO applications. No statistical differ-ence was calculated among these three treat-ments. The weight loss of the three treatmentsafter 24 d of storagewas still less than theweightloss measured in control fruits at 4 d of storage.

Fig. 3. Effects of different treatments on the soluble solids concentration of cucumber fruits during 24 d of storage. (A) Four days after storage (DAS), (B) 8 DAS,(C) 12 DAS, (D) 16 DAS, (E) 20 DAS, and (F) 24 DAS. LO = lemongrass oil; PEx = propolis extract; SL = shelf life. Values followed by the same letter orletters within the same storage time are not significantly different according to Duncan’s multiple range test at P # 0.05. Small letters are used for thecomparison of storage duration in cold rooms, and capital letters are used for the SL periods.


Fruit firmness is another important pa-rameter used to determine fruit quality, and itis well known that postharvest handling andtreatments influence fruit firmness. At thebeginning of the experiments, average fruitfirmness was measured as 0.77 kg·cm–2. Theresults obtained indicated that fruit firmnessshowed a decreasing trend during storage(Fig. 2). Moreover, exposing fruits to SLconditions caused a significant reduction infruit firmness. During the first 16 d of storage,no significant difference in fruit firmness ofthe various treatments was observed. There-after, fruits stored inMAP bags were found tohave higher fruit firmness than those storedwithout MAP. After SL simulation at 24 ±1 �C, the fruits stored in MAP bags were

found to have greater fruit firmness thanthose stored without MAP. Results sug-gested that the fruit firmness of cucumberscan be maintained for 20 d if stored in MAPbags at 4.5 ± 0.5 �C and 95% RH. All fruitsexhibited extreme decay after 24 DAS + 2SL and fruit firmness measurement wasunable to perform.

The SSC of cucumber fruits was mea-sured as 4.75% at the beginning of theexperiments. During the first 4 d of storage,SSC of fruits increased slightly and wasnoted to be between 4.88% and 5.13%.However, no significant difference was cal-culated between these values and the initialvalue. Hereafter, SSC of cucumber fruitsshowed a declining trend during storage.

Shelf-life conditions were also noted to re-duce the SSC of cucumber fruits (Fig. 3).After 8 d of storage, fruits treated with any ofthe applications were found to have higherSSC than the untreated control fruits. Amongthese applications, the highest SSC was notedin the combination of MAP with PEx or LOand no significant difference was measuredamong these treatments. In 12 d of storage,fruit SSC in untreated control fruits de-creased to 4.14%, and the SSC of fruitstreated with MAP and PEx or LO wasbetween 4.60% and 4.68%. The decreasingtrend in SSC continued until the end of theexperiments, but the efficacy of the treat-ments for maintaining SSC decreased after24 d of storage. The difference between the

Fig. 4. Effects of different treatments on the CI of cucumber fruits during 24 d of storage. (A) Four days after storage (DAS), (B) 8 DAS, (C) 12 DAS, (D) 16 DAS,(E) 20 DAS, and (F) 24 DAS. LO= lemongrass oil; PEx = propolis extract; SL = shelf life. Values followed by the same letter or letters within the same storagetime are not significantly different according to Duncan’s multiple range test at P# 0.05. Small letters are used for the comparison of storage duration in coldrooms, and capital letters are used for the SL periods.


untreated and treated fruits decreased, andsome of the treatments were found to besimilar to untreated fruits in terms of fruitSSC. At the end of the experiments, thehighest SSC was measured in fruits treatedwith MAP + PEx (both doses).

CI is a serious problem affecting manyfruits and vegetables. Storing fruits at low butnot freezing temperatures promotes to CIsymptoms. It is a well-known phenomenonthat CI symptoms mainly appear some daysafter storing at low temperatures. This wasobserved in the present study, and the first CIsymptoms were observed at 4 DAS + 2 SL(Fig. 4). However, CI symptoms were onlyobserved in fruits stored without MAP. Thisresult suggests that MAP improves fruits’

resistance to CI. The acceptable CI limit forconsumers is 0.4. CI of untreated fruits andfruits treated with different doses of PExexceeded the limit for consumers after 8DAS + 2 SL. CI of other fruits were belowthis level. CI showed an increasing trendduring storage, but fruits stored in MAP bagswere found to have significantly lower CIthan the others. Untreated fruits were foundto have acceptable CI at 12 d of storage, butthe CI exceeded acceptable limits at 16 d ofstorage. All other treatments were found toprevent CI at 16 d of storage under 4.5 ±0.5 �C. When fruits were taken out of coldstorage to SL conditions, CI of all treatmentsincreased rapidly. Fruits stored in MAP bagsand treated with PEx or LOwere still found to

have acceptable CI. These results suggest thatcucumber fruits can be stored until 20 d under4.5 ± 0.5 �C and 95% RH if treated with PExor LO and kept in MAP bags. However, CIincreased rapidly and passed the acceptablelevel when fruits were transferred to SLconditions after 20 d of storage. The CI ofall fruits was found to be greater than 0.4 after24 d of storage.

Fruit decay is another problem in cucum-ber fruit storage. Results of the present studyindicate that both treated and untreated fruitsdid not have decay problems at 4.5 ± 0.5 �Cand 95% RH storage conditions for 8 d.Thereafter, fruits began to show signs ofdecay, but MAP bags were found to reduceDI (Fig. 5). Up to 12 d of storage, fruits

Fig. 5. Effects of different treatments on the decay incidence of cucumber fruits during 24 d of storage. (A) Four days after storage (DAS), (B) 8 DAS, (C) 12 DAS,(D) 16 DAS, (E) 20 DAS, and (F) 24 DAS. LO = Lemongrass oil; PEx = propolis extract; SL = shelf life. Values followed by the same letter or letters withinthe same storage time are not significantly different according to Duncan’s multiple range test at P# 0.05. Small letters are used for the comparison of storageduration in cold rooms, and capital letters are used for the SL periods.


treated with all treatments did not showdecay. Storing fruits in MAP bags and treat-ing with either of the biomaterials was alsofound to be an effective method to protectfruit from decay, not only in cold storage butalso during SL, for 12 + 2 d of storage.Sixteen days of storage is the limit for thosetreatments, however, after which fruits be-gan to show decay. After 20 d of storage, allfruits except those treated with 0.5% PExand stored in MAP bags had decay. DIreached 20.83% in untreated control fruitsand was between 0.00% and 10.42% in thefruits treated with PEx or LO and stored inMAP bags. After the MAP + 0.5% PExtreatment, the highest influence, and there-fore the lowest decay incidence, were mea-

sured from MAP + 0.2% PEx and MAP +0.5% LO. Thereafter, SL conditions pro-moted DI. Fruits treated with 0.5% PEx andstored in MAP bags showed 12.5% DI; therest had greater than 85.42% DI after 20DAS + 2 SL.

Sensory quality is the last parameterstudied but may be the most important forconsumers. Results suggest that fruits do nothave problems with sensory quality at 4 or4 + 2 d of storage. A 0 to 5 scale was used torate sensory quality (recall that 0 = excellentquality and 5 = inedible). The first decline insensory quality was observed at 8 d of storagein the untreated control fruits and in fruitstreated with the lower doses of PEx and LO(Fig. 6). The sensory quality of those fruits

was between 0.00 and 0.88, indicating nor-mal smell, freshness, and firmness; a faintloss of green color of the peel; and visibledecay. This was acceptable for consumers,but when fruits were transferred to SL con-ditions, all fruits, except those stored in MAPbags and treated with 0.5% LO, had higherscores, reaching 2.25 (more than a slightincrease on the sensory index). After 12 dof storage, sensory quality of all fruits beganto decrease. However, fruits stored in MAPbags were of better quality than the others, asdemonstrated by a lower score on the sensoryindex. Even at 16 d of storage, sensoryquality scores of fruit stored in MAP bagswere between 0.44 and 0.75. The resultsindicate that SL increases weight loss and

Fig. 6. Effects of different treatments on the sensory quality of cucumber fruits during 24 d of storage. (A) Four days after storage (DAS), (B) 8 DAS, (C) 12 DAS,(D) 16 DAS, (E) 20 DAS, and (F) 24 DAS. LO = lemongrass oil; PEx = propolis extract; SL = shelf life. Values followed by the same letter or letters within thesame storage time are not significantly different according to Duncan’s multiple range test at P # 0.05. Small letters are used for the comparison of storageduration in cold rooms, and capital letters are used for the SL periods.


CI and also reduces sensory quality. Theappearance of the fruits after 16 d of storageis shown in Fig. 7. Storing fruits in MAP bagswas found to protect sensory quality for 20 dof storage (score of 1.00 to 1.50). Fruitsstored without MAP had moderate sensoryquality scores (�3.00), which limits market-ability. Two days SL after 20 d of storagecaused a significant loss in the sensoryquality, with scores indicating heavy damage(of limited edible quality) for all fruits exceptthose treated with MAP + 0.5% PEx. There-after, all fruits had a score of >3.00 (moder-ate) and were considered unsuitable for sale.Shelf life after 24 d of storage caused loss inquality for all fruits, with sensory scoresmeasured as 5.00 for all treatments.

Discussion

Weight loss is an important indicator ofthe postharvest quality of fresh produce. It ismainly a result of two biological processes—respiration and transpiration—and is highlyaffected by environmental conditions. It isalso associated with loss of vitamins, brown-ing, texture loss, and susceptibility to decay(Kader, 1991; Valverde et al., 2005). There-fore, prevention of the weight loss is a crucialstep for maintaining the postharvest qualityof fresh produce. In the present study, fruitsin all treatments showed an increasing trend

for weight loss during storage, but MAP wasfound to be effective in the prevention ofweight loss. The ability of MAP to preventweight loss was previously reported by sev-eral researchers for various fruits (Calebet al., 2013; Dhall et al., 2012; Kahramano�gluet al., 2018) and for cucumber fruits(Manjunatha and Anurag, 2014; Wang andQi, 1997). In addition, application of PEx andLO was found to reduce weight loss ofcucumber fruit, in agreement with previousstudies carried out on different fruits(Kahramano�glu 2019; Kahramano�glu et al.,2018; €Ozdemir et al., 2010; Prakash et al.,2015; Zahid et al., 2013). Results also suggestthat the combination of MAP with LO or PExbetter prevents weight loss. Kahramano�gluet al. (2018) and Kahramano�glu (2019) pre-sented similar results for different crops withPEx, LO, and black seed oil treatments.

Fruit firmness was maintained whenstored in flexible MAP bags with or withoutLO and PEx. Jia et al. (2018) previouslynoted that the fruit firmness of cucumbersmight be protected with application of pu-trescine. This was also found to be effectivein preventing loss of SSC. MAP, LO, andPEx have been previously noted to preventloss of fruit firmness and SSC in various fruits(Kahramano�glu 2019; Kahramano�glu et al.,2018; €Ozdemir et al., 2010; Zahid et al.,2013). Fruit firmness, including crispness

and juiciness, is an important component offruit texture (Konopacka and Plocharski,2004). The main cause of firmness loss infruits and vegetables is pectin depolymeriza-tion. MAP change the surrounding atmo-sphere of fruits by reducing O2 levels andincreasing CO2 levels; according to Maftoo-nazad and Ramaswamy (2005), this reducesthe activities of pestinesterase, which in turnallows the retention of fruit firmness. Asimilar mechanism was reported for ediblecoatings and essential oils by Zhang et al.(2014) andMohammadi et al. (2016) for gumArabic coating and Zataria multiflora EOs.Researchers have noted that coated cucum-bers have reduced respiration, and this mightbe responsible for the retention of fruitfirmness during storage. Similar successfulresults for edible coatings and EOs have beennoted for various fruits and vegetables(Abdolahi et al., 2010; Eshghi et al., 2014).

CI is a serious problem, affecting manyfruits and vegetables. Storing fruits at low butnot freezing temperatures leads to the devel-opment of CI. It is a well-known phenomenonthat CI symptoms mainly appear some daysafter storing at low temperatures. This wasobserved in the present study, where SLconditions were found to increase CI symp-toms in fruits. The results suggest that MAP iseffective in maintaining fruit resistance to CIand that application of PEx and LO furtherincreases this efficacy. Wang (1989) reportedthat diverse physiological and biochemicalalterations are seen in sensitive species whenthey are kept at low temperatures and fruitsdevelop diverse CI symptoms, including sur-face pitting, discoloration, internal breakdown,loss of flavor, and decay. Intermittent warming,MAP, and application of synthetic and/or bio-chemicals were previously noted to be effec-tive in alleviating the CI. In agreement withthis, our results show that MAP is effective inpreventing CI in cucumber fruits. Liu et al.(2016) previously noted that the postharvestapplication of methyl jasmonate and nitricoxide inhibits H2O2 accumulation in cucumberfruits and reduces CI. No similar studies werefound for LO, but PEx was previously reportedby Kahramano�glu et al. (2018) to reduce CI onpomegranate fruits during storage.

CI generally increases fruits’ susceptibilityto decay (DeEll et al., 2000). The DI ofcucumber fruits in the present studywas similarto the CI results in that MAP was found toprotect fruit from decay. The positive effects ofMAP were further increased with the applica-tion of LO or PEx. Several researchers havereported similar positive effects for the threetreatments in controlling fruit decay(Kahramano�glu, 2019; Kahramano�glu et al.,2018; €Ozdemir et al., 2010; Prakash et al.,2015; Zahid et al., 2013). However, most ofthese studies considered only a single treat-ment in isolation; few considered their com-bined effects, and no studies were on cucumberfruits. The success of propolis in controllingfruit decay in cucumbers is in agreement withthe reports of Brasil et al. (2012), who notedthat polysaccharide-based edible coatings areeffective in protecting the microbiological

Fig. 7. Appearance of control and treated cucumbers during storage. LO = lemongrass oil; MAP =modifiedatmosphere packaging; PEx = propolis extract.


quality of fresh-cut papaya. EOs of other plantswere previously noted to be effective in con-trolling fruit decay in cucumber. For example,Mohammadi et al. (2016) noted that EO ofZataria multiflora controls microbial growthand improves the SL of cucumbers.

Conclusions

On the basis of our results, MA packagingwas found to have important effects for pre-serving the quality parameters of cucumberfruits. Moreover, it was also concluded thatthe application of PEx and LO providesfavorable conditions for cucumber fruitsand improves postharvest storage quality.The combination of MAP with PEx or LOwas found to have the highest impact on thequality parameters, and results suggested thatthe storage of cucumber fruits (under 4.5 ±0.5 �C and 95% RH) might be extended to 20d. Cucumber fruits are known to be sensitiveto storage conditions and storage durationwas limited to less than 14 d. Reaching 20 dof storage with acceptable quality for edibil-ity is an important result for the science andfuture of postharvest technology. These re-sults reveal that combiningMAP with EOs orother edible biomaterials improves its effi-cacy and provides higher quality fresh pro-duce. Finally, because SL significantlyreduces the quality of cucumber fruits andfruits stored on the shelf in MAP bags showhigher quality than fruits stored withoutMAPbags, it is suggested that the fruits be trans-ferred to consumers in MAP bags to preservefruit quality.

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