Bruise damage susceptibility and fruit quality assessment of pear

Introduction: Bruising is a type of mechanical damage that challenges fresh horticulture production efforts, which occurs mainly due to excessive compression and impact forces during postharvest operations resulting in quality deterioration of fresh produce and reduction in economic value. Objective: This study aims to assess the bruise susceptibility of imported pears and determine its effect on pear quality attributes. Materials and Methods: Each Pyrus communis, variety ‘D'Anjou’ imported pears was impacted by a known mass steel ball at three different drop heights (20, 40, and 60 cm). Bruised fruit was stored at 22°C with 45±5% RH and 10°C with 85±5% RH for 48 hours storage period. Pears were also subjected to different quality analyses like color, firmness, weight loss, and total soluble solids (TSS). The analysis was conducted by performing two factorial balanced analyses of variance (ANOVA). Results: Bruise area, bruise volume, and bruise susceptibility were the highest at higher drop impact (60 cm) on pears stored at 22°C and the lowest were at lower drop impact (20 cm) on pears stored at 10°C. Furthermore, there was a statistically significant impact of drop height and temperature on bruising susceptibility. Besides, statistics showed a significant impact of the studied factors (temperature and drop height) on quality parameters of pears such as lightness (L*), redness-greenness (a*), weight loss, and firmness after 48 hours of storage Conclusion: Mechanical damages like bruising can be affected by many factors like storage temperature and impact level force. Finally, it was concluded that mechanical damages like bruising can be affected by many factors like storage temperature and impact force. Overall, this study can consider as a guideline for workers during postharvest operations and handling.