Jujube and Loquat - Tropical and Subtropical Fruits: Postharvest Physiology, Processing and Packaging - page 586

Table 31.4. Effect of 1-methylcyclopropene (1-MCP) treatment on selected physico-chemical properties
of loquat fruit stored at 20 ◦ C.

Days Control 0.5 μl/liter (1-MCP) 5 μl/liter (1-MCP) 50 μl/liter (1-MCP)

Firmness (newtons) 0 4.62 — — —

4 5.69 5.31 5.02 5.35

8 6.14 5.85 5.64 5.96

TA (mmol/kg) 0 50.37 — — —

4 37.13 37.03 42.36 37.98

8 20.35 20.29 24.22 21.62

TSS (%) 0 9.61 — — —

4 10.46 10.34 9.98 10.16

8 9.47 10.01 10.33 9.09

Browning index 0 0 — — —

4 0.27 0.15 0.05 0.32

8 0.64 0.40 0.27 0.68

Source: Cai et al. (2006aa).

et al., 2003; Amoros et al., 2008). Ding et al. (2002) studied
the effects of MAP on the storage life of loquat fruit (cv.
'Mogi'). Their results showed that fruit in MAP had min-
imal water loss (0.9-1.5%), while perforated polyethylene
(PE) packaged fruit had 8.9% water loss after 60 day stor-
age at 5 ◦ C. The MAP also significantly retained organic
acids, however, no effect was observed on total sugars.

Storage temperature is very important for loquat fruit in
MAP conditions; fruit stored at high temperature (20 ◦ C)
sustains severe decay, and MAP increased the incidence of
decay (Ding et al., 2002). Packaging of loquat in 20 μ m
thickness PE at 5 ◦ C resulted in an in-bag atmosphere of
approximately 4 kPa O 2 with 5 kPa CO 2 and in the highest
scores for appearance and chemical compounds. Ding et al.
(2002) concluded that loquat fruit, packaged under these at-
mospheric conditions, could be stored for 2 months at 5 ◦ C
with a higher quality and minimal risk of any physiological
disorder development.

0 ° C LT C

5

Loquat processing/products
Loquat is generally consumed as fresh fruit or used in culi-
nary applications such as in desserts or fruit salads. Other
uses are in preserves (jelly and jam), juice, squash, can-
ning, and chutney, but all these products are processed on
a small scale (Karadeniz, 2002). A summary of products
prepared from loquat, as reported in the literature, is given
in Table 31.6.
Commercially processed loquat products available in the
market are rather very few. However, given loquat's ex-
cellent physicochemical and sensory properties, there is
a great potential to develop and market more products.
Loquat puree/nectar/juice can be used in many culinary
applications. Developing juice blends in combination with
other fruit juices is another underutilized potential of loquat
since the juice blends market has seen a tremendous growth
since 1990s. Pitted dried loquat can be a healthy snack that
can find acceptance among consumers.

4

3

2

1

0

10 20 30 40 50 60

Storage days

Figure 31.5. Water loss in loquat during storage
(under 0 ◦ C after low temperature conditioning
treatment of 6 days at 5 ◦ Corstoredat0 ◦ C for up to
60 days) (source: Adapted from Cai et al., 2006b).