Hot water treatment to reduce chilling injury and fungal development and improve visual quality of two Opuntia ficus indica fruit clones

Cactus plantations in semi-arid lands produce large quantities of cactus fruits with short shelf lives (about 3 weeks) in sparsely populated areas where production rapidly surpasses demand. Improvements in shelf life are needed to (1) permit international shipments by refrigerated ship of approximately 3 week duration, (2) to be compatible with 2 °C fruit fly quarantine treatments, (3) to function without the use of fungicides as none are currently registered and as registration for additional minor crops is not likely. Thus storage temperatures likely to avoid and cause chilling injury (2 and 8 °C) were evaluated with hot water (52 °C) dips for a spineless local variety not well accepted for export and a spiny orange fruited clone 1287 selected for export. The results were: the hot water treatment was greatly beneficial in reducing chilling injury, fungal development and improving visual quality, clone 1287 has better long-term storage properties than the local variety, and the 2 °C temperatures approved for the control of fruit fly would not cause chilling injury to either the local or the orange variety, if the fruits were subjected to the heat treatment.