Scientific Papers Series B Horticulture

Taking into the account these and the fact thatfruits are eaten especially by the children andby the people with health problems, theresearchers are concerned to find storagemethods without chemicals like syntheticfungicides (De Souza et al.,1999; Sanz et al.,1999). The cold storage atmosphere preventsdecay development by retarding pathogenicmicroorganisms growth and reducing pathogenenzyme activity (Menel et al., 2012).The use of synthetic fungicides render severeside effects affecting the environment andhuman health. The usage of antagonistic yeastproduct against postharvest pathogens offers aviable option with hopeful results.The potential use of Saccharomyces cerevisiaeyeast was studied and emphasize by someauthors for corn and sorghum species (Piccininet al., 2005; Roncatto and Pascholati, 1998).Until now, in literature there are very fewinformation about the effects of S. cerevisiaeyeast on disease and maintaining qualitypostharvest of strawberry (Gouvea et al., 2009).Therefore, the objective of this study is toevaluate the combined effect of antagonisticyeast (based on S.cerevisiae), syntheticfungicides and cold storage to prevent decaydevelopment and extend the shelf life ofstrawberry.MATERIALS AND METHODSStrawberry cultivars studied were Favette,Cardinal, Pandora, Hood. For all cultivars wereapplied three plant treatments prior toharvest, in different stages: at full bloom, fruitonset and preripening of fruit in threeexperimental variants:V1-control-plants was sprayed with distilledwaterV2-plants was sprayed with Topsin solutionV3-plants was sprayed with antagonistic yeastproduct (suspension of Saccharomycescerevisiae)Samples were taken from 15 fruit at harvestand after 6 days during cold storage (4º-5ºC).There were three replication for the assays ineach treatment, and the experiment wasrepeated in two seasons. Fruits qualityattributes was analyzed by specific methods:- dry matter was measured by drying someknown amount of fresh fruit to a constantweight in a oven at 105°C, the results wereexpressed in percentage- soluble solids content (SSC) was determinedby measuring refractive index of strawberryjuice using an Abbe refractometer withtemperature correction, and the results wereexpressed as ° Brix- titratable acidity (TA) content was measuredby titration of fruit juice with solution 0.1 NNaOH until reaching an endpoint of pH 8.1and expressed as a percentages of citric acid-the ratio between the soluble solids contentand the titratable acidity, which reflects thefruit taste feature, was derived.- ascorbic acid content wasspectrophotometrically determined using the2,6-dichlorophenol-indophenol method and theresults were expressed as mg /100 g FW- total anthocyanins content was determinatedusing the pH diferential method (Giusti andWrolstad, 2001). The pigment content wascalculated and expressed as pelargonidin-3-glucoside/100 g FW, the most abundantanthocyanin in the strawberry fruit.- the presence of Botrytis cinerea was visuallyevaluated during the experiment, expressed asa percentage of fruit showing decay symptoms.RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONSStrawberry fruits were analyzed in allexperimental variants for quality parameters atharvest and after 6 days of cold storage (4-5ºC) in the aim to evaluate influence ofantifungic treatments on fruit qualityevolution.The dry matter content remained practicallyconstant at Favette and Pandora cultivars atharvest for all 3 variants (table 1). However wecan observe an increase of dry matter for V2and V1 variants at Cardinal and Hood at harvest. Afterstorage dry matter increased slightly in case allvariants studied for all four cultivars (table 2).The fruits treated with antagonistic yeast (V3)had higher levels of the SSC to control for allcultivars studied at harvest stage. These resultsare in accordance with dates obtained byGouvea et al., 2009. Strawberry fruit SSCdecreased slightly after 6 days of coldstorage for all three variants studied. Similar220