BIOLOGICAL AND TECHNICAL INVESTIGATIONS TO MAINTAIN THE QUALITY OF PERISHABLE PRODUCE AFTER HARVEST

Research Area1.Maintenance of fruit and vegetable quality through the application of specialized storage regimens. Our overarching goal is to understand how the atmosphere and plant growth regulators can be manipulated to maximize the storage of fruits and vegetables.Objective1.Release kinetics of 1-MCP from encapsulation materials.Our objective is to improve our understanding of the factors that affect the release of 1-MCP from commercial and experimental encapsulation products.Objective 2.Lower oxygen limits of common apple cultivars.Our objective is toexplore the utility of DCA storage technology to address long-term storage needs of Michigan apple growers and storage operators by defining the tolerances to O2and CO2combinations of selected cultivars.Objective 3.Utility of DCA to control storage disorders.Our objective is tounderstand the extent to which DCA can be deployed to control physiological disorders and senescence of apple cultivars and to better understand the biological mechanisms behind these responses at the 'omics level, including impacts on flavor and aroma compounds.Research Area 2.Regulation and biosynthesis of important aroma compounds.Our overarching goal is to learn how fruit regulate the synthesis of important aroma-related esters. The focus will be on the esters having the greatest impact on the aroma of the fruit being investigated.In apple, the three most important esters are hexyl acetate, butyl acetate, and 2-methylbutyl acetate; in banana, they are 3-methylbutyl acetate and 3-methylbutyl butanoate.Objective 1.Branched-chain ester synthesis in apple. Our objective is to sequence theMdCMSlocus of a variety of apples in search of other haplotypes with possibly important variants not present in 'Jonagold'.Objective 2.Branched-chain ester synthesis in banana.Our objective is to determine whether BC ester biosynthesis in ripening banana fruit is mediated by unregulated isoforms of key feedback-sensitive enzymes.