*4.10. Mould & Yeast (MY) and Total Microbial Count*

Controlling postharvest diseases by ethanol application has been tested by various previous reports; e.g., *Botrytis cinerea* was controlled in table grape [60] and anthracnose in loquat fruit [18]. The reduced fungal growth in samples treated by ethanol is due to its striking lethal interactions with fungal spore that occurred in the mitochondrial membrane [61]. In this study and previous study on rocket [62], AsA treatment reduced MY and total microbial count. Regarding AsA application, it reduces the pH; a lower pH value is unsuitable for microbial growth [35].

Previous works demonstrated the inhibited role of EOs and their several compounds for controlling human and plant pathogens [4]. Our results in Table 2 show that both PMO and TTO had an inhibitory effect on microbial growth on the samples surface. The same trend was confirmed by previous work on dragon fruit [12], where PMO inhibited the mould growth during storage for 21 d. It was found that TTO treatment suppressed the growth of the pathogens on the surface of strawberry fruit during refrigerated storage [36], mostly due to inhibitory effects of the main chemical compositions of PMO such as Levomenthol [63] and TTO such as 4-Terpinenol [64] against microbial growth (Table 1).
