Thesis (Ph.D.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Agriculture - Department of Pomology

Post-harvest loss is one of the biggest problems which effects agricultural economic growth globally. Physical methods like spray of new types of fertilizers using innovative nanotechnology and refrigerated storage are common practices to minimize post-harvest losses in date fruits; these are one of the potentially effective options of significantly enhancing the global agricultural productions needed to meet the future demands of the growing population. During 2018 and 2019 seasons, 2Zaghloul3 date palm fruits were sprayed three times (at growth start, just after fruit setting and at one month late) with some nanoparticles (zinc oxide, magnetite, selenium, silver and chitosan), in different concentrations (30, 60 and 90 ppm) in order to study the effect of some nanoparticles to improve quality and storability of date palm fruits. The sprayed fruits were harvested at khalal stage and then fruits stored up to 3 months at 0 {u00B0}C and relative humidity (RH) 90-95% to evaluate quality attributes. Also, all sprayed fruits immersion in gelatin nanoparticles at 2% as a post-harvest coating material to prolonging the storage life and maintaining their fruit quality of sprayed 2Zaghloul3 date palm fruits during cold storage for 90 days. All treatments were very effective to improving fruit quality in terms on increasing (dimensions, weight, volume, flesh weight, firmness, total soluble solids, total sugars and total anthocyanin) and decreasing (discarded%, weight loss%, total acidity, total soluble tannins and total phenolic content) as compared with the control

Issued also as CD