A Diagnostic Toolbox for Integrated Management of Apple Postharvest Necrotic Disorders

Apple postharvest physiological disorders, characterized by peel or flesh necrosis, result in significant yearly financial losses. Unfortunately, current chemical and cultural control systems are lacking or provide little assurance that apples will not develop disorders in storage or elsewhere in the supply chain. An alternative control strategy, based on biomarker-based risk assessment and diagnostics, could provide storage managers with effective tools that predict, diagnose, and distinguish these disorders to efficiently target treatments, guide storage management and marketing decisions, and improve quality assurance throughout the supply chain.  Biomarker-based tools will be developed for disorders that impact nationwide apple fruit sales including superficial scald, carbon dioxide induced injury, diffuse browning of the flesh, and soft-scald/ soggy breakdown.  Tools will be developed by contrasting metabolic responses related to different postharvest disorders and/or provoked by postharvest regimes that alter disorder incidence and severity.  Candidate biomarkers and metabolic fingerprints will be discovered using untargeted metabolic and gene expression profiling approaches.  The economic feasibility of biomarker-based tools will be evaluated according to the different roles of stakeholders within the apple supply chain and different apple production regions.  Transfer of biomarker-based diagnostic concepts and tools for industrial use will be actively pursued so new technology can be employed in the field.