QUALITY OF ‘GALA’ APPLES AS INFLUENCED BY HARVEST MATURITY,STORAGE ATMOSPHERE AND CONCOMITANT STORAGE WITH ‘BARTLETT’ PEARS1

Controlled atmosphere (CA) storage for 45 or 90 days following harvest reduced quality losses for both ‘Gala’apples and ‘Bartlett’pears compared with fruit from regular atmosphere (RA) storage. Fruit stored in CA were firmer, had higher acidity and less color change than fruit from RA storage. Apples and pears stored together in CA maintained good quality and compared favorably with apples or pears stored separately. There was no difference in fruit quality between fruit stored at 1% O₂ and 1% CO₂ compared with fruit stored in 2% O₂ and 3% CO₂. Fruit harvested at a more advanced stage of maturity deteriorated more quickly in storage than earlier harvested fruit. A combination of 45 days in CA followed by 30 days RA resulted in apples that were superior in quality to apples stored for 75 days in RA alone.