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Fruit Preservation

Have you ever wished your pears would keep fresh for longer?

Scientists from Lincoln University have been trialling the use of aspirin and, surprisingly, it is showing potential to help with this problem.

In a first for New Zealand, visiting Chinese scientist Zhang YuXing, from Hebei Agricultural University College of Horticulture, and Lincoln University horticulturist Mike Morley-Bunker have been investigating the use of an aspirin (salicylic acid) soak to extend the keeping quality of pears.

"Consumers increasingly want to buy high quality, longer lasting fruit but are concerned about some of the treatment chemicals used at present," Mr Morley-Bunker says.

"What we are doing is responding to consumer preference by searching for natural plant products that can be used to enhance the keeping qualities of fruits and vegetables."

Salicylic acid (a phenolic antioxidant) is produced naturally by many fruits, vegetables and flowers and has a number of roles in flower development and the ripening of fruit, including helping them resist attack by micro-organisms and retain freshness.

Prof Zhang measure the weight, firmness and the sugar content of the pears. Then he placed some of them in a dilute solution of salicylic acid for 24 hours, stored them at room temperature for two weeks (to replicate what happens in the home) and then repeated the measurements.

"We were very pleased to find that the treated pears had decayed (called senescence) much less than the untreated pears we used as controls," Prof Zhang says.

Mr Morley-Bunker says as soon as pears are picked they start a natural process of slow decay and with this treatment they were able to slow this process further and, most importantly, not cause any change in the taste or appearance of the pears.

"We were familiar with the use of aspirin to extend the life of floral arrangements but we were not able to find anybody else in the world who had treated just the outside of the pears, so we weren't sure whether it would work, but it did," he says.

"We know that the physiological changes during fruit senescence involve a decrease in respiration rate and the production of ethylene, so we were hoping that our treatment would put the brake on these changes and delay senescence and this is what appears to have happened."

Prof Zhang is an expert in summer fruits, specialising in pears and in post-harvest quality. He was sponsored by the Chinese Government to spend six months at Lincoln University, to improve his English and undertake a short research project.