Horticultural scientists at Australia’s Edith Cowan University have been compiling research over the past year from all over the world to assess the benefits of melatonin application onto fruit and vegetables, to help keep these highly perishable foods fresher – for longer. They have identified the hormone melatonin as a key technology in preserving the shelf life of fresh produce.
Lead researcher Professor Zora Singh said up to 44 percent of fresh horticultural produce is lost from farm to consumption, and ‘chilling injury’ plays a key role in the postharvest losses.
“You will often see abnormal ripening, sunken spots, pitting, hardening of flesh and browning of peel and pulp in cold-stored fruits, while browning of tissues, translucency and water-soaked lesions in the vegetables, that is what we call chilling injury,” Professor Singh explained.
“The average storage temperature for subtropical fruits and vegetables usually range from 4–8°C while 10–20°C is optimum temperature to avoid chilling injury in tropical horticultural produce.”
Professor Singh and his team claim most of the evidence points to melatonin as one of the best ways to prevent or reduce the effects of chilling injury to cold-stored fruit and vegetables.
“Melatonin is a natural sleeping hormone in living organisms, and it is also helpful in reducing chilling injury symptoms and membrane leakage by maintaining higher levels of antioxidants and freshness of horticultural produce,” researcher and PhD student Shoaib Shah explained. “Melatonin is a safe alternative to hazardous chemical treatments, without any adverse effects on the consumer health.”
“When it comes to grains and other produce for harvest, they are more resilient than fresh horticultural produce,” Professor Singh added. “Fruit and vegetables are not only challenging to grow, preserving them is immensely difficult and this is a crisis affecting nations all over the world, so we need to find the solution to keep producing food from the earth in a sustainable way.”