Melatonin Treatment Affects Wax Composition and Maintains Storage Quality in ‘Kongxin’ Plum (Prunus salicina L. cv) during Postharvest

Abstract

Cuticular wax is an essential barrier against biological and abiotic stress and is also an important factor affecting fruit storage quality. This paper investigated the effect of melatonin treatment on cuticular wax and the storage quality of plum fruit at low temperature storage of 4 ± 1 °C. ‘Kongxin’ plum was treated with 150 μmol·L−1 melatonin, dried overnight at room temperature 25 ± 1 °C, and then stored at 4 ± 1 °C for 40 d. The microstructure of the fruit epidermis was examined after 0, 20, and 40 d of storage, and the wax composition and fruit storage quality were measured at 10 d intervals. The results demonstrated that melatonin promoted the disintegration and thickening of rod-shaped waxy crystals of ‘Kongxin’ plum fruit and inhibited the combination of disintegrated wax and inner wax. Melatonin maintained fruit firmness and decreased the correlation between fruit firmness and other storage quality parameters. The correlation between firmness and wax composition was enhanced. Melatonin promoted long-chain alkanes that were positively correlated with firmness and water retention and strengthened the correlation between the length of the alkane chain and storage quality parameters but reduced the difference between alkane isomers and storage quality parameters.