Ethylene and brassinosteroid effect on strawberry ripening after field spray

Abstract

Abstract In contrast to ripening of climacteric fruits knowledge, non-climacteric fruits ripening still poorly understood. In this sense, strawberry (Fragaria x ananassa L. Duch) is a high commercial crop and has an expressive world production that has been used as a model study. Thus, the aim of this study was to evaluate the effect on physicochemical and phytochemical characteristics of strawberry Cv. Camiño Real, in four maturation stages (green, white, pink and red) after the ethylene (Etephon®) and brassinosteroid (epi-brassinolide) exogenous spray. The evaluations were carried out at application time (field assay) and after 24h (post-harvest assay). Brassinosteroid application tends to reduce phenolic compounds content mainly in the red stage, whereas ethylene treatment tends to increase supposing that while brassinosteroids reduce phenolic compounds acting to fruit conservation, by the reduction of oxidative stress, increasing antioxidant activity, the ethylene act in fruit ripening leading to senescence. However, for vitamin C content while brassinosteroid treatment increases ascorbic acid in postharvest for the white fruit, the ethylene treatment do a dramatically increased in vitamin C content to red fruits, showing that although ethylene and brassinosteroids can affect the vitamin C content, the response can change according to the development stage spray, suggesting that more studies are necessary to understand the hormonal interaction for ascorbic acid production during strawberry ripening.