By Richard Hurndall. Following the first commercial Controlled Atmosphere (CA) cold storage room in Kent, UK in 1929, Molteno Brothers built a 7-room complex in 1934, each room holding about 6000 wooden lug boxes of apples. This complex was enlarged…
Compiled by Store‐it Group for Hortgro Science. NOTE: these best-practice guidelines are regularly updated. Please consult the Hortgro website for the latest version. What is the correct harvest maturity for long-term storage? Starch breakdown <40%. Optimum is 20%–30%. Can be…
A Hortgro-funded study investigated the effect of different cooling strategies on common storage disorders of Fuji apples. By Anna Mouton. Study highlights summarised The main finding of this study is that room cooling is superior to stepwise cooling for Fuji…
Finding the best long-term storage strategy for Granny Smith apples. By Grethe Bestbier. For acceptance by international markets, not even 1% of a shipment of Granny Smith apples may be affected by superficial scald. Unfortunately, this cultivar is especially prone…
Can plums tolerate higher CO2 levels during shipping? By Kyra-Kay Rensburg. The current reefer container-vent setting of 15 m3 per hour for stone fruit aims to prevent CO2 build-up but exacerbates moisture loss. Closing the vents could increase relative humidity…