Harvest, Handling, and Storage Recommendations for Improving Postharvest Quality of Blackberry Cultivars

Abstract

Maintaining shelf life and postharvest quality of blackberries (Rubus subgenus Rubus) from harvest to consumer is challenging for growers and packers due to several postharvest issues including fresh weight (FW) loss, red drupelet reversion, and fruit leakiness. The time of day blackberries are harvested, the time from harvest to cold storage, and the time in cold storage are factors that may alter the incidence and severity of these postharvest problems. In this experiment, blackberries from 10 cultivars were picked at two different times (7:00–7:30 am and 10:00–10:30 am), delivered to cold storage either immediately or following a 90-minute delay, and evaluated after 1 or 2 weeks in cold storage for FW loss, red drupelet reversion, and leakiness. The response of blackberry postharvest quality to time of harvest, delay to cold storage, and storage length was cultivar-specific. In summary, time of harvest, delay to cold storage or storage length did not affect cultivars Arapaho and Ouachita. Different harvest times did not affect FW or incidence of reddening, but increased leakiness in ‘Chester’ and ‘Triple Crown’; thus, these two cultivars should be preferably harvested early in the morning. Our recommendation for ‘Chester’, ‘Triple Crown’, ‘Osage’, ‘Prime-Ark® Traveler’, and ‘Von’ is to store the fruit of these cultivars as soon as possible. Limiting cold storage to 1 week maintained postharvest quality for at least one attribute of most cultivars (all but Arapaho and Ouachita) compared with 2 weeks of storage.