PLANT CELL BIOTECHNOLOGY AND MOLECULAR BIOLOGY

Apricot (Prunus armeniaca, L.) is a low chilling cultivar spreading in many tropical and subtropical areas. During storage, "Canino" Apricot fruits are exposed to different levels of microbial decay, by a pathogenic fungus. Natural plant extracts as essential oils, among the numerous alternatives, are catching the attention of researchers worldwide, due to their biodegradability. Thus, this study was conducted to evaluate the efficacy of nanoemulsions of essential oils extracted from peppermint and caraway fruits in the laboratory on improving quality and extending storage life of "Canino" Apricot fruits under cold storage in 2018 and 2019 seasons. The fruits were immersed in water (control treatment), peppermint oil at (0.01, 0.05 and 0.1) % and caraway oil at (0.01, 0.05 and 0.1) %, all solutions containing Tween-80 0.05% (v/v). After immersing for 2 min in treatments, fruits were air dried for half hour at room temperature, then stored for 28 days at 0°C and 90–95% R.H. and assessed weekly to determine the changes in fruit quality characteristics during cold storage.Results showed that, all of tested nanoemulsions of essential oils application significantly decreased weight loss, decay percentage and increased fruits storage period. Moreover, essential oils, positively, affected postharvest quality properties including fruit firmness, total soluble solids, titratable acidity, vitamin C, total soluble sugars, total phenols and respiration rate. It was observed that nanoemulsions of essential oil from peppermint gave the best efficacy on weight loss, decay and firmness, while nanoemulsions of essential oil from caraway gave the best efficacy on total soluble solids, total sugars, total acidity, vitamin C, total phenols and respiration rate of treated fruits during cold storage compared to control.