文摘
Postharvest hormetic treatment of mature green tomato fruit (Solanum lycopersicum cv. Mecano) with high intensity pulsed polychromatic light (HIPPL) significantly delayed ripening to levels comparable to those achieved using a conventional low intensity UV-C (LIUV) source. A 16 pulse HIPPL treatment reduced the ΔTCI (tomato colour index) by 50.2% whilst treatment with a LIUV source led to a reduction of 42.8%. Moreover, the 16 pulse treatment also induced disease resistance in the fruit to Botrytis cinerea with a 41.7% reduction in disease progression compared to a 38.1% reduction for the LIUV source. A single 16 pulse HIPPL treatment was found to significantly reduce disease progression on ripe fruit with a 28.5% reduction in comparison to 13.4% for the LIUV treatment. It is shown here that delayed ripening and disease resistance are local responses in side-treated tomato fruit for both LIUV and HIPPL treatments. Finally, utilising a 16 pulse HIPPL treatment would reduce treatment times from 370 s for LIUV sources to 10 s per fruit – a 97.3% reduction.