Effect of preharvest Stroby spray and/or chitosan postharvest coating on chilling injury and quality of muskmelon during cold storage

Muskmelon(Cucumis melo L.) was sensitive to low temperature,which likely causes chilling injury(CI)during cold storage,and makes a decline in quality,resulting in shelf life shortened. In this study, ‘Manao'muskmelon was used to investigate the effect of 4 time 400 mg/L Stroby spray alone during the fruit development period(young fruit,swelling period,netting period and 48 hours before harvest) and/or 1.5% chitosan postharvest coating on quality and CI of muskmelon during low temperature(5 ℃) storage.The results showed that preharvest Stroby spraying or postharvest chitosan coating alone or their combination effectively reduced the CI of muskmelon,significantly lowered the membrane permeability and the content of MDA in fruit,and that the effect of preharvest Stroby spraying alone was the best as the fruit CI index of this treatment was only about 1/3 of the control fruit. Similarly,anyone of the above three treatments also delayed the decline of TSS and TA,maintained good fruit quality during storage. Among them,preharvest Stroby spraying alone was the best to maintain higher fruit firmness,L* and h° values. Postharvest chitosan coating had the best effect to alleviate the decline of TSS and fruit weight loss.