Salicylic acid pre-treatment alleviates chilling injury, preserves bioactive compounds and enhances shelf life of mango fruit during cold storage

Abstract

This study was conducted to investigate the effect of postharvest salicylic acid (SA) treatment on alleviating chilling injury (CI), preserving bioactive compounds and extending shelf life of mango fruit during low-temperature storage. Physiologically mature mango fruit (cv. Chausa) were immersed in 1 mM and 2 mM SA solutions for 5 min and then stored at 8±0.5ºC temperature and 90±5% relative humidity. Before taking observations, the fruit were subjected to exposure at 25±2ºC temperature for 3 days to simulate shelf life. The results showed that SA treatments were highly effective in alleviating CI (11-25% lower) in mango fruit. Among the treatments, 2 mM SA proved best in lowering weight loss, fruit softening, disease incidence, pectin methylesterase and polygalacturonase activities over control. Bioactive compounds like carotenoids, phenolics and antioxidant capacity were also maintained higher in SA-treated fruit. The findings confirmed that, SA (2 mM) can be potentially used as a pre-storage treatment during low-temperature storage of mango fruit.