The 2010 ASHS Annual Conference

Objective(s):
The objective of this workshop is to bring together leaders in the fields of postharvest physiology, plant breeding, genetics and molecular biology to address the recent research developments in the ripening and senescence of fruits and vegetables.

Consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables is increasing as consumers become more aware of their nutritional value and role in disease prevention. Improving quality of fresh produce reaching the consumer would add value, increase consumption, and create new markets for these commodities.  Despite the development of many postharvest technologies and the optimization of storage conditions for many commodities, fundamental understanding of ripening and senescence of fruits and vegetables has not been fully achieved. Improved regulation of ripening and senescence is needed to optimize market quality of these fresh products. Recently, there has been significant progress made by geneticists, molecular biologists and postharvest physiologists using state-of-the-art tools to reveal new insights into the ripening and senescence process. However, over the past twenty years, this topic has not been addressed as a workshop/colloquium at the ASHS annual meetings.
The focus of this proposed workshop (part1 and 2) is to highlight recent developments in the area of ripening and senescence of fruits and vegetables. Better understanding and insight into ripening and its regulation could provide new approaches to optimize the preharvest environment, postharvest handling, and processing technologies, to control, maintain and optimize the quality of fresh fruits and vegetables. A summary of recent developments in the breeding and genetic regulation of fruit ripening will be provided by Dr. Susan Brown. Molecular biological approaches using mutants to determine regulation of fruit ripening will be discussed by Dr. Cornelius Barry. Genomic approaches for better understanding of the hormone interplay during fruit ripening and senescence will be summarized by Dr. Pietro Tonutti. The physiology of non-climacteric fruit and immature fruit will be summarized by Dr. Donald Huber. The classification of fruit and vegetables as climacteric and non-climacteric based on their biochemistry and physiology of ripening will be reviewed and debated by Drs. Randy Beaudry and Jeff Brecht. Finally, an implication and mechanism of 1-MCP on ethylene action and ripening of fruits and vegetables will be revealed by Dr. Chris Watkins. Discussion of those timely topics will help to clarify our current understanding of ripening and senescence and identify areas of need research.