Postharvest quality and shelf-life of mango cultivars grown at Sinaloa, Mexico.
Araiza E., Osuna T., Siller J., Contreras L., Sanchez E.
Author Affiliation: Research Center for Food and Development, Culiacan, Mexico.
: 1275-1279
Abstract : New mango orchards along the west coast of Mexico have been growing in the last years, due mainly to the economic perspectives presented with the increasing demand on the international markets. One of the main characteristics considered for the growers on the new orchards are the selection of new cultivars with high quality fruit and extended shelf-life. Sinaloa state has been one of the most important mango producers for exportation in Mexico with the traditional cultivars such as 'Haden', 'Kent', 'Tommy Atkins' and 'Keitt'. Growers continuously evaluate the adaptation, yield, disease resistance, quality and shelf-life of new varieties to their areas. On this work, we evaluated the quality and shelf-life of three relatively promising new cultivars to the area and compared them with two of the traditional ones. The experiment was set using mango fruits from five different cultivars ('Kent', 'Tommy Atkins', 'Ataulfo', 'Gouveia' and 'Osteen') harvested at physiological maturity. Fruit were evaluated at arrival and stored under simulated marketing conditions (20±2°C and 80% RH) to follow the changes on firmness, colour (external and internal), tritatable acidity, total soluble solids content and pH, every three days. Weight loss, respiration rate and ethylene production were determinated daily. Morphological characteristics such as seed weight and size, among others parameters were determinated once on 50 fruits by cultivar. Total soluble solids content increased in all cultivars reaching after 15 days values that ranged from 15.0°Brix on 'Osteen', up to 20.4°Brix on 'Gouveia'. 'Tommy Atkins' presented firmer fruits at the end of the study with 35.5 N, while 'Osteen' was softer with 5.7 N. Based on appearance, the new cultivars evaluated did not present extended shelf-life compared with 'Tommy Atkins' and 'Kent'. Shelf-life of 'Gouveia' and 'Osteen' stored under the simulated marketing conditions was two weeks.