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Onion ( Allium cepa L.) is one of the most important bulbous vegetable used in global kitchen. Although it has various important traits but among them the high total soluble solid content (HTSS) of white onion is highly preferred by the industries for processing purpose. Looking into the broader use of the white onion; we utilized a total of 23 polymorphic simple sequence repeats (SSRs) and intron length polymorphic markers (ILPs) to characterize thirty five white onion genotypes for HTSS. Further, we also correlated these DNA fingerprint data with the TSS for identification of HTSS and LTSS lines. The total average numbers of alleles for SSR and ILP locus, heterozygosity (He) and polymorphism information content were found to be 2.4, 0.35 and 0.29 respectively. The UPGMA dendrogram revealed two distinct clusters of genotypes. Based on the TSS and DNA genotype data, our study revealed that Bhima-shweta (LTSS-12.09%, sub-cluster IAa) & WHT-12L-HT-15-Reject-M-7(HTSS- 18.02%, cluster II) are more diverse than the others. Other white onion lines including WHTB-7G-GT-15-SC-M-7 small bulb (HTSS 18.80%), WHT-2B-GT-18-SC-M-7 (HTSS 18.51%), WHTS-4D-GT-18-MC-M-7 (HTSS 18.49%), WHTB-3C-GT-18-MC-M-7 (HTSS 18.27%) and WHTS-11K-Pickle-SC-M-7 (HTSS 17.68%) were identified as superior HTSS lines. These identified diverse HTSS and LTSS lines could be useful for the mapping of HTSS coding genes for the acceleration of molecular breeding of onion through the marker assisted selection (MAS) which could be used by the industries for the larger scale processing of the white onion products required by the global community.

This study was conducted in Postharvest Lab of Faculty Sustainable Agriculture. The objective of this study was to determine the effect of hydro cooling time, storage temperature and storage duration on Saba banana. The hypothesis that has been tested in this experiment was is there a significant difference in the effect of hydro cooling time (CT), storage temperature (ST) and storage duration (SD) on Saba banana. The treatments used in this experiment were different hydro cooling times (0, ½ and 7/8); then Saba banana was stored at cold temperature (13±2°C), room temperature (26±2°C) and outside temperature (30±2°C) after hydro cooling for 3 weeks duration. The parameters that have been recorded in this study were weight loss, pulp firmness, skin colour, visual appearance, pH value, total soluble solid and total titratable acidity. The experimental design thatused for this study was Completely Randomised Design (CRD) with a factorial arrangement of treatments (3CoolingTime x 3Storage Temperature x 4 Storage Duration), with three replications and two fruits per treatment per replication. The results were analysed using SAS Version 9.1. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to get the variance among the treatments, storage temperatures and storage duration. LSD was performed to determine difference on the mean values. The results indicate that the cooling time has significantly affected the weight loss, pulp firmness, skin colour L*, skin colour C*, pH, total soluble solid and titratable acidity but it did not affect significantly on skin colour h° and visual appearance. Meanwhile the storage temperature affects significantly all the parameter except skin colour h° and all the parameters have significantly affected at all storage durations. Treatment combinations of cooling time and storage temperature were found to have significant interaction effects on visual appearance and titratable acidity only. The treatment combinations between cooling time and storage duration were found to have significant effect on weight loss, total soluble solid and titratable acidity. The treatment combination between storage temperature and storage duration were found to have significant effects on all the postharvest qualities except for the pH. The treatment combinations between cooling time, storage temperature and storage duration were found to have significant effect on skin colour L*, skin colour C*, visual appearance and titratable acidity. In conclusion, there is no any precooling time that can be suggested for the farmers to be used in their farm because precooling increases the weight loss and reduces visual appearance.

In recent years, the mealybug (Phenacoccus solenopsis Tinsley) has severely damaged the production of custard apple in north-eastern part of Bangladesh. Field and laboratory experiments were conducted at Baniachong, Jagannathpur and Sylhet Sadar Upazilas of Hobiganj, Sunamganj and Sylhet districts, respectively. The research was carried out from 2016 to 2019 for documenting the present status of mealybug infestation in custard apple and its potential management by fruit bagging with cloth bags. In the first study, the number of adult mealybugs (Mean ± SE) per infested custard apple in Sylhet Sadar (289.7 ± 30.2) was significantly higher than Baniachong (162.8 ± 23.0) and Jagannathpur (100.1 ± 9.6). Percent (%) fruit weight loss was recorded as 20.4 ± 0.1, 19.8 ± 0.1 and 19.5 ± 0.2 in Sylhet Sadar, Baniachong and Jagannathpur, respectively. In the second study, the average number of adult mealybugs was 256 ± 6.2 in a non-bagged mature custard apple, whereas no mealybugs were observed on bagged fruits. During the final harvest, the average circumference of cloth bagged fruits was significantly higher (30.1 ± 0.5 cm) than non-bagged fruits (26.6 ± .64 cm). The average weight of bagged fruit was significantly higher than non-bagged fruit. The Total Soluble Solid (TSS) content of bagged fruits (11.9%) was slightly higher in comparison with non-bagged fruits (10.8%). The amount of Ca, Mg, P and Fe contents of custard apple was also significantly higher in bagged fruits compare to infested fruits. The results concluded that fruit bagging could be an eco-friendly management option to protect the custard apples from mealybug infestation and improving fruit quality.

The flavor of Pomelo is highly variable and difficult to determine without peeling the fruit. The quality of pomelo flavor is due largely to the total soluble solid content (TSSC) in the fruit and there is a commercial need for a quick but nondestructive TSSC detection method for the industrial grading of pomelo. Due to the large size and thick mesocarp of pomelo, determining the internal quality of a pomelo fruit in a nondestructive manner is difficult, and the detection accuracy is further complicated by the noise typically generated by the common methods for the internal quality detection of other fruits. Thus, the aim of this study was to determine the optimal method to accurately detect pomelo TSSC and find a de-noising model which reduces the influence of noise on the optimal method’s results. After developing a full-transmission visible/near infrared (VIS/NIR) spectroscopy sampling method, the confirming experimental results showed that the optimal pomelo TSSC detection model was Savitzky Golay + standard normal variate + competitive adaptive reweighted sampling + partial least squares regression. The R2 and RMSE of the calibration set for pomelo TSSC detection were 0.8097 and 0.8508, respectively, and the R2 and RMSE of the validation set for pomelo TSSC detection were 0.8053 and 0.8888, respectively. Both reference and dark de-noising are important for pomelo internal quality detection and should be calibrated frequently to compensate for time drift. This study found that large sensor response translation noise can be reduced with an artificial horizontal shift. Data supplementation is efficient for improving the adaption of the detection model for batch differences in pomelo samples. Using this optimized de-noising model to compensate for time drift, sensor response translation, and batch differences, the developed detection method is capable of satisfying the requirements of the industry (TSSC detection R2 was equal or larger than 0.9, RMSE was less than 1). These results indicate that full-transmission VIS/NIR spectroscopy can be exploited to realize the nondestructive detection of pomelo TSSC on an industrial scale, and that the methodologies used in this study can be immediately implemented in real-world production.

Soilless growing systems can improve water-use efficiency, especially in closed soilless growing systems. The main purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of different transplanting conditions, and determine how supplying H2O2 as an oxygen source to the rhizosphere of strawberry plants in a soilless growing system affects plant growth, fruit yield and fruit quality. Strawberry plants (Fragaria x ananassa Duch.) cv. ‘Fortuna’ were cultivated in 12 L pots filled with peat substrate, and maintained under conditions of natural light and temperature. Treated plants were supplied with hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) (H1) and control plants did not receive H2O2 (H0). In terms of the transplanting conditions, the plants were transplanted in October (T1), and either maintained in a culture chamber (T2), or refrigerated (T3), for one month, before being transplanted. A completely randomized block design with two treatment factors (transplanting conditions, and H2O2 treatment) and five replications was established. Then, we determined the fruit per plant, yield per plant (g plant−1), fruit weight (g fruit−1), fruit size (mm), SPAD values, crown number, crown diameter (mm), flower number, firmness (g cm−1), pH, total soluble solid (TSS), titratable acidity (TA) and TSS/TA. During the early crop cycle, there were not significant differences between treatment and the transplanting conditions that significantly affected the fruit weight and fruit size, although T3 produced the highest values. During the late crop cycle, the H2O2 treatment affected fruit per plant, yield per plant (g plant−1), and crown diameter, with H1 producing the highest values. Furthermore, the transplanting conditions affected yield per plant (g plant−1), old SPAD values, crown diameter, firmness, TSS, TA and TSS/TA.

Optimum maturity and ripeness at the time of harvest is highly important to maintain the nutritional parameters of fruits. Maturity and ripeness of most of the fruit samples depends on various physiochemical parameters such as color, shape, size, total soluble solid and many more. Several state-of-the-art solutions such as GC–MS, Electronic Nose, Spectrometer and many more are available to measure various fruit quality parameters but most of the solutions available in the market are bulky, time consuming, lab-level and requires skilled manpower for operation. Presented manuscript reports a battery operated, smartphone spectrometer based solution to carry out the variety of activities in the field. Overall device uses UV–Vis-NIR led array as source and collection of spectral sensors (AS7262 and OPT101) to acquire overall UV–Vis-NIR spectrum over the range of 400–1000 nm with the resolution of 40 nm. Designed source and detector modules have been interfaced with designed triggering, filter and amplification circuit. A low power wireless solution along with on-board microcontroller facility has been designed and interfaced with circuits, source and detectors. All essential components such as source, detectors, filters, lens and all circuits have been assembled in a housing of dimensions 18.0 × 9.0 × 6.0 (in cm) and the entire device weighs 183.35 g. Different statistical and neural network based modelling techniques have been explored to design prediction models for total soluble solids, weight, volume, chlorophyll, sugar content and acidity. Models have been evaluated based on accuracy, memory and time usage. Best performed models have been used to train handheld smartphone based spectrometer device to predict various quality parameters for citrus samples. System communicates data to smartphone based android app to display various parameters. Android app also provides facility to save data on cloud with tree and orchard ID to monitor overall yield and harvesting time.

Yardlong bean [ Vigna unguiculata ssp. unguiculata cv.-gr. sesquipedalis ] is an important vegetable legume, particularly in Asia. Tenderness and sweetness of fresh pods are the key factors in deciding the commercial acceptance of yardlong bean. We report here for the first time quantitative trait loci (QTL) mapping of these traits from crosses between the yardlong bean accession JP81610 and wild cowpea ( V. unguiculata ssp. unguiculata var. spontanea ) accession JP89083. Two SSR-based linkage maps developed from BC 1 F 1 [(JP81610 × JP89083) × JP81610] and F 2 (JP81610 × JP89083) populations were used for QTL analysis of pod tenderness and total soluble solid (TSS) content. Composite interval mapping (CIM) identified three QTLs for pod tenderness with phenotypic variance explained (PVE) of 5.6–50 % and alleles from JP81610 increased the tenderness. CIM detected two QTLs for pod TSS with PVE of 7 and 9 %, and alleles from JP89083 increased TSS. Locations of these QTLs were compared with those of QTLs controlling domestication-related traits identified in the same populations. All QTLs for pod tenderness co-localized with QTLs for pod length. QTLs for pod TSS co-located with QTLs for pod dehiscence and/or pod length. The implications of these QTLs in breeding new yardlong bean and cowpea cultivars are discussed.

Muscadine ( Muscadinia rotundifolia Michx ) is a fruit crop native to the southeastern United States that is well-adapted to warm and humid subtropical environments. However, most available muscadine cultivars exhibit several limitations that hinder commercial production. This study evaluated four commercial cultivars and 10 advanced selections from the Muscadine Breeding Program of the University of Georgia over a 4-year period to assess their annual yield, agronomic traits, production performance, and fruit quality traits. Significant genotypic variability was observed across all traits evaluated, thus reinforcing the strong genetic influence on muscadine productivity and fruit characteristics. ‘Granny Val’ exhibited the highest total yield (TY) and commercial yield (CY), whereas Ga. 6-6-358 showed comparable TY, CY, and percentage of sound berries (SB%) values. Ga. 6-1-269 also performed well, consistently exhibiting high percentage of CY (CY%) and low susceptibility to field berry decay, indicating strong potential for commercial production under warm and humid conditions. Additionally, it showed earlier maturity and an extended harvest period, which are traits that could help prolong the muscadine availability window in the southeastern United States. In contrast, the high rotten berry percentage (RB%) observed in Ga. 10-1-294 and Ga. 12-3-22 and the low total soluble solids (TSS) contents in Ga. 13-4-79 and Ga. 12-5-46 limit their suitability for commercial use. Although low-yielding, Ga. 10-1-329 exhibited high TSS and dark berry pigmentation, which are traits associated with sweetness and high antioxidant content. Overall, these results provide essential information for cultivar selection and muscadine breeding efforts aimed to improve adaptation, fruit quality, and productivity under subtropical growing conditions.

Herein, we examined the effects of plasma-activated water (PAW) treatment on the native microflora survival, quality maintenance, and antioxidant activity of fresh-cut pears, which were washed with PAW under three different conditions (peak voltage = 6, 8, and 10 kV) for 5 min and then stored at 4 °C for 12 days. Distilled water and sodium hypochlorite treatment were used as control and comparison, respectively. Results showed that all PAW treatments significantly inhibited the growth of aerobic bacteria, yeast, and mold during storage, with the 8-kV PAW treatment maintaining the lowest growth rate. Additionally, no significant change was observed in the soluble solid content and titratable acidy of fresh-cut pears treated with PAW. Treatment by 6-kV PAW significantly slowed down the softening of fresh-cut pears, while the 8-kV PAW treatment significantly reduced the mass loss and the total phenolic content ( P < 0.05). The ascorbic acid content and radical scavenging activity (DPPH and ABTS) of fresh-cut pears were affected by PAW treatment only at the beginning of storage. After 8 days of storage, no significant differences were found in ascorbic acid content and radical scavenging activity among the samples ( P > 0.05). Furthermore, PAW outperformed sodium hypochlorite in antimicrobial effectiveness and quality maintenance. Taken together, these results suggest that PAW treatment might be a promising strategy to control microbial growth and maintain the quality of fresh-cut pears.

This study compared six cherry tomato (Solanum lycopersicum var. cerasiforme) lines - 'Yellow pear', 'Red pear', 'Yellow lamp', 'Red olive', 'Big red orbicular', and 'Small yellow orbicular' - grown under hydroponic and soil-based greenhouse conditions to identify superior genotypes for yield and fruit quality. The experiment was conducted during the 2023 winter-spring season in Borazjan, Iran, using a factorial experiment arranged in a completely randomized design with four replicates. Hydroponic plants (perlite:cocopeat, 40:60) received Hoagland solution, while soil-grown plants were supplied with a mixture of organic and inorganic fertilizers. Yield components (fruit weight, fruit volume, fruit set, and yield), growth (plant height), and biochemical attributes (vitamin C, total soluble solids, citric acid, carotenoids, lycopene, chlorophyll a, and chlorophyll b) were measured. Significant effects (𝑝<0.01) of genotype, cultivation system, and their interaction were observed for all traits. 'Big red orbicular' recorded the highest fruit weight, fruit volume, yield, chlorophyll b, and carotenoid contents, while 'Red pear' showed the greatest vitamin C and chlorophyll a, and 'Small yellow orbicular' had the highest total soluble solids and citric acid. Hydroponic cultivation enhanced yield, vitamin C, and soluble solids, whereas soil cultivation favored carotenoid and lycopene accumulation. Overall, 'Big red orbicular' under hydroponic culture emerged as the most promising genotype for high-yield greenhouse production, while soil-grown tomatoes may be preferable for maximizing pigment content. These results provide practical guidance for genotype selection and cultivation system optimization in cherry tomato production.