Effects of harvesting maturity on the quality changes during storage of late maturing W.Murcott

W. Murcott (Citrus reticulata Blanco) is a variety of late-maturing mandarin in Chongqing of China that has been imported from the United States. There are more medium ripe citrus varieties, but fewer early or late ripe ones in the market. Late ripe W. Murcott can be held until March of the next year for better sustainable development of the citrus industry. In this study, the parameters were measured, including the color, sugar and acid components, ascorbic acid content, relative water content, firmness, weight loss rate, and rot rate of the fruits in seven harvesting periods during cold storage (0 - 150 days), thereby determining the effect of ripening on fruit quality and storability. Every 45 fruits were selected as a group, and three groups were taken in parallel for the determination of relevant indexes every 15 days. Graphpad Prism 5.0 software was selected to plot all recorded data. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed on a SPSS17.0 software, and Duncan's multiple comparison was used to analyze the different significance. The results showed that the citrus fruits turned yellow completely in the VI harvest period at the time of harvest (day 0 of storage), where the ascorbic acid content, soluble solid content, and solid-acid ratio were the highest. The soluble solids content of fruits in the harvest period I was low, and the color changed slowly during the storage time. The fruits in the harvest period of V-VII were rotted during storage. In the harvest period of III and IV, the fruits did not deteriorate, where the weight loss rate was less than 5%, and the ascorbic acid content was higher than that in other harvest periods at the end of storage. There were 8 kinds of soluble sugar and 9 kinds of organic acid in the fruit during the storage. The contents of fructose, sucrose, mannose, pyranose, ribose, and xylose all increased first and then decreased with the extension of the harvest period. The content of citric acid and aconite acid decreased with the delay of the harvesting period. The content of aconite acid in fruit was basically unchanged in the period of I-IV, and then decreased significantly during storage. It reached the lowest in the VI harvest period. The contents of malic acid, oxalic acid, propionic acid, fumaric acid, gluconic acid, α-ketoglutaric acid, and succinic acid in fruits all increased at first and then decreased with the delay of the harvesting period. In general, the harvest time needed to be adjusted to different commercial demands. The findings herein demonstrated that the fruit of harvest period VI (Feb. 7th) had complete color transformation while the soluble solid (11.60%) and ascorbic acid content (21.15 mg/100 g) were high, and the solid acid ratio (17.45) was optimal, suitable for fresh market. The decay rate of fruits in the harvest period III (Dec. 24th) was 0 after 150 days of storage. The highest content of ascorbic acid (15.27 mg/100 g) and titratable acid (0.37%) was achieved at the end of low-temperature storage, with the high content of soluble solids (9.6%), while the firmness remained better (376 g), suitable for post-storage sales.