Impact of nitric oxide on shelf life and quality of nectarine (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Prunus persica</Emphasis> var. <Emphasis Type="Italic">nucipersica</Emphasis>)

Nectarine is an emerging fruit crop in India which has immense nutritional quality and fairly good amount of antioxidants. In India, peach orchards are being replaced by nectarine primarily because of fuzzless peel. However, shelf life of nectarine is lean due to its climacteric behaviour. Hence, we attempted to observe the effect of nitric oxide (NO), using its donor compound, namely sodium nitroprusside (SNP) on postharvest life and quality of ‘Silver Queen’ nectarine fruit. In this study, fruit of ‘Silver Queen’ nectarine were treated with various concentrations of SNP (0.25 mM, 0.5 mM, 1.0 mM, 1.5 mM) after harvesting at climacteric stage of maturity. Fruit were stored at ambient condition for further analysis on daily basis, after air drying at room temperature. Our results revealed that among the various concentrations of SNP, 0.5 mM was found to be best in reducing physiological loss in weight (PLW), maintaining firmness and retaining higher phenolics, antioxidant activity, exhibiting slower increase in lipoxygenase (LOX) and pectin methylesterase (PME) activity and better quality fruit up to 8 days than 4 days of untreated fruit. Hence, postharvest dip of ‘Silver Queen’ nectarine fruit in 0.5 mM solution of SNP could be recommended for enhancing the shelf life by 4 days.