Scientific Papers Series B Horticulture

which sustain the immune system and itsbalance;- using, whatever the time of the year, of thefood recipes based on vegetables and fruits,by the rehydration of industrial driedproducts, both in restaurants and inpizzerias, bakeries and candied fruits;- the dried fruits and vegetables with a richcontent in vitamins and minerals, besidestheir important role in the diet, helps toprevent cardiovascular and digestive tractdiseases;- the dried foods have high nutrient contentin low volume and weight, about 5-7 timesless compared to the fresh ones, presenting asignificant advantage in storage andtransport.MATERIALS AND METHODSThe organization of experimental variants havebeen done on the basis of variety and storageconditions and that is presented in table 1.Table 1. Organization of apricot experimentsVariant VarietyStorage conditionsEnvironmental (20-V1 Royal22°)V2 - idem - Refrigeration (10-12°)V3 - idem - Cold storage (3-5°)Environmental (20-V4 Mari de Cenad22°)V5 - idem - Refrigeration (10-12°)V6 - idem - Cold storage (3-5°)Cea mai buna de Environmental (20-V7Ungaria22°)V8 - idem - Refrigeration (10-12°)V9 - idem - Cold storage (3-5°)Preparation of apricot experiments is illustratedin the figure 1.Figure 1. Apricot experiments during preparationApricots belonging to three varieties (Royal,Mari de Cenad and Cea mai buna de Ungaria)were stored in different thermal conditions(environmental temperature, refrigeration andcold conditions). The evolution of losses (byweight and decay), structural firmness andsome chemical fruit compounds during storagehave been determined.The experiments was developed in 2012, onthe dehydration plant existing in the pilotstation of ICDIMP-Horting Bucharest.The dehydration plant used (fig. 2) is consistof vegetables and fruit dryer (70-300 kg / batchcapacity), using hot air as drying agent. Theinstallation program allows measurement andautomatic/manual programming (Figure 3)of working parameters: temperature, humidity,air speed, driving valve and it is provided withan interface for connection to PC for dataacquisition.Drying temperature was 65-70 0 C, held in thisarea for 12 hours. During the dehydrationprocess was followed the evaluation of thecombined effects of various drying parameters,such as drying temperature, speed and directionof the stream of air movement.122