State and New Technology on Storage of Fruits and Vegetables

Dear Colleagues,

Fruits and vegetables are varieties of highly perishable products and are prone to suffer from quality deterioration after being harvested. This process involves the cessation of nutrition supply, environmental stresses, as well as genetically regulated ripening and senescence. Quality loss, like water loss, texture dynamics, nutrient loss, tasty deterioration, and volatile composition alteration make them less acceptable in terms of marketing. However, a worse outcome is decay or disease as result of preharvest and postharvest microbes which can end the extension of shelf life. Therefore, in either case, appropriate storage strategies are essential and greatly needed for the marketability of fruits and vegetables.

However, owing to enormous range of cultivars of fruits and vegetables, their postharvest characteristics present complex and distinct physiological processes genetically, although climacteric and non-climacteric groups have been established to seek simplicity and clarity. On the other hand, environmental factors influencing the physiology of fruits and vegetables may be the origin of storage technology. Many environmental factors, including temperature, humidity, gas composition, sound, irradiation, and microbes affect the quality and shelf life of fruits and vegetables. Therefore, the genetic diversity of fruits and vegetables, as well as the involvement of complicated environmental factors, raise great challenges for the development of desirable storage technology. Fortunately, there have been great advances in the development of effective storage for application in a variety of fruits and vegetables, and in the uncovering of physiological and biochemistry mechanisms, which will enable understanding of the effectiveness and creative design of storage methods.

In this Special Issue, we aim to publish critical reviews concerned with the state of storage of fruits and vegetables, and original research papers focused on new technologies, including physical, chemical, and biological methods, to delay postharvest senescence, improve quality, and prolong shelf life of fruits and vegetables (including fresh-cut produce).

Dr. Ke Wang
Dr. Muhammad Azam
Prof. Dr. Wei Heng
Prof. Dr. Changjie Xu
Dr. Yongchao Zhu
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Horticulturae is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2200 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• postharvest senescence
• chilling injury
• disease
• quality regulation
• phytohormones
• fresh-cut
• storage