POSTHARVEST BEHAVIOR OF 'GARBI' AND 'SAFOR' - NEW TRIPLOID MANDARINS

‘Garbi’ (‘Fortune’ × ‘Murcott’) and ‘Safor’ (‘Fortune’ × ‘Kara’) are the Valencian Institute of Agrarian Research’s most recent citrus cultivars to be released for commercial production. Those two new cultivars are late-maturing triploid mandarins, and they were studied and tested in the Plant Protection and Biotechnology Center in the IVIA. During two seasons the postharvest behavior of both cultivars were evaluated in the Postharvest Technology Center. The effect of storage temperature on quality of ‘Garbi’ and ‘Safor’ mandarins were studied. Fruit were stored up to 30 days at 1, 5, or 9°C, and then fruit were stored at 20°C during 6 days simulating shelf-life. The incidence of chilling injury was evaluated; ‘Garbi’ mandarins were more sensitive to chilling injury than ‘Safor’ mandarins when stored at 1 or 5°C. However, this sensitivity was lower than that shown by ‘Fortune’ mandarins in previous studies. ‘Safor’ mandarins did not show symptoms of chilling injury at any storage temperature studied, when the fruit were previously coated. For both mandarin cultivars, fruit quality, including firmness, weight loss, soluble solids, titratable acidity, and ethanol content were not affected by storage at low temperature.