Effect of postharvest treatments on physiological disorders of ‘Galant’: a new scab resistant apple cultivar

The present work focuses on the promising scab resistant apple cultivar ‘Galant’ (Lumaga A 913) which shows great interest as a suitable cultivar for organic production but little is known about its postharvest storage. Experiments performed by the Fondazione Edmund Mach (FEM) from 2015 to 2017 show a complex of different physiological disorders affecting this apple: superficial scald, flesh browning, browning of the skin and underlying flesh (soft scald and soggy breakdown). Here, we present the results of different postharvest treatments applied in order to avoid fruit injury, including initial low oxygen stress conditions (ILOS) and 1-methylcyclopropene (1-MCP) application. Superficial scald symptoms commonly appeared on less mature fruits but the production of α-farnesene and its volatile oxidation products which are involved in the process are inhibited by using ILOS technology which kept the disorder under 4% disease incidence in comparison with controlled atmosphere (CA) with 35% after 180 d storage and 15 d shelf life. On the other hand, both ILOS and CA storage do not affect the incidence of internal browning and the incidence rates were always >60% after 14 d shelf-life. Based on the flesh browning disorders, the storability of ‘Galant’ was always limited to <180 d. The incidence of superficial scald and flesh browning were similar in both 1-MCP treated and untreated apples