EFFECT OF COLD STORAGE DURATION ON SHELF QUALITY ATTRIBUTES OF 'BING' AND FIVE SWEET CHERRY CULTIVARS DEVELOPED IN THE SUMMERLAND BREEDING PROGRAM

Shelf quality attributes are important in determining consumer satisfaction with sweet cherries. Cherries are often put on the retail market after short term storage or cold container transport and so it is important to document the quality after periods of storage that occur during normal marketing. 'Bing', 'Cristalina', 'Lapins', 'Samba', 'Skeena' and 'Sonata' fruit were harvested at optimal maturity. Fruit were stored for 0, 2 or 4 weeks at 1°C in modified atmosphere packages and evaluated after an additional 5 days at 10°C in air (shelf conditions). Quality changes were monitored by measuring firmness, weight loss, severity of surface pebbling and stem browning, soluble solids content and titratable acidity. Firmness was the most important factor for quality. Firmness increased significantly with time in cold storage for 'Bing', 'Lapins', and 'Samba', whereas the other three cultivars showed little change in firmness. Principal components analysis determined that weight loss under shelf conditions was largely associated with fruit size and also demonstrated phenotype differences between the cultivars in response to storage duration. This phenotypic analysis segregated out 'Bing', 'Lapins' and 'Samba' as having similar patterns of change in quality, largely due to similar increases in firmness. ‘Cristalina’ segregated out from the other cultivars due to greater titratable acidity, weight and firmness loss during storage. The results reflect one year of data, but they show that different sweet cherry cultivars have unique storage and shelf quality characteristics.