Preliminary screening of suitability of peach and nectarine breeding selections for fresh-cut industry

Peach and nectarine can be minimally processed to successfully produce ready-to-eat fresh-cuts fruit. Cutting operations induce wounding stress, which may accelerate the qualitative deterioration processes including water loss and oxidative browning, thus limiting the shelf-life of fresh-cut produce. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the suitability to fresh-cut industry of 20 peach and nectarine advanced selections of CREA breeding programs and 3 cultivars with different flesh colour, taste (sweet and acid) and textural typologies (melting, non-melting, slow melting, stony hard). The fruit qualitative and nutraceutical profile was analysed, and the susceptibility to browning preliminary screened by assessing the flesh colour change, at room temperature, at 2, 3 and 4 h after cutting through colourimetric measures. The 23 genotypes displayed large variability in many of the qualitative and antioxidant traits measured. The highest nutraceutical compounds content was detected in the red-fleshed fruits. The preliminary results showed that the flesh browning degree, assessed by calculating the variation of the L* coordinate of the CIELAB system, varied greatly among genotypes and was generally higher in the white-fleshed fruits, although genotypes with little.L* values were identified also in this group. The method adopted in this work could allow rapid and easy-to use screening peach genotypes for susceptibility to browning in view of a use for the fresh-cut industry.

Automated summary

This study evaluated the suitability of different peach and nectarine varieties for the fresh-cut industry, and assessed the fruit quality, antioxidant traits, and flesh browning degree. The results showed significant variation among the genotypes, with red-fleshed fruits having the highest nutraceutical compounds content. The method used in this study could provide a rapid and easy screening tool for evaluating the susceptibility to browning in peach genotypes for the fresh-cut industry.