Effects of Degreening Treatment on Quality and Shelf-Life of Organic Lemons

Abstract

Degreening treatment is used in early cultivars of the lemon crop in the Mediterranean area to enhance the commercially desired colour when fruits have reached the proper ripening stage for harvesting and marketing. In the organic market, temperature and relative humidity are controlled to promote the degradation of chlorophylls, allowing the visualisation of the lower layer formed by carotenoids. Although this is a stressful procedure, the degreening treatment showed greater results in terms of weight loss and firmness, the control of the respiration rate, total soluble solids, titratable acidity, and the total phenolic content in flavedo and juice compared to the non-treated lemons, without significant differences on the overall liking between both treatments. During postharvest storage, significant differences in fruit quality were observed compared to at harvest, due to the decreasing tendency observed on the quality parameters analysed along with development and on-tree fruit ripening. In conclusion, the results obtained suggest that the application of a degreening treatment in early cultivars of lemon would not lead to a detriment of fruit quality other than the quality changes associated with the on-tree fruit-ripening process.