Navid Yazdani; Behnam Osanloo; Mahmoud Lotfi; Keyvan Asefpour Vakilian
Abstract
Digital image processing is an emerging tool to predict fruit quality; therefore present study was carried out to develop an image processing technique for investigating the storage life of cantaloupe. Potassium permanganate (KMnO4) impregnated materials were used to prolong the postharvest life of cantaloupe ...
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Digital image processing is an emerging tool to predict fruit quality; therefore present study was carried out to develop an image processing technique for investigating the storage life of cantaloupe. Potassium permanganate (KMnO4) impregnated materials were used to prolong the postharvest life of cantaloupe fruit and the effects of these treatments were evaluated by 3 image textural features parameters and flesh firmness. The treatments were divided into seven groups containing untreated, conventional paper impregnated with 7% KMnO4, nanozeolite impregnated with 7% KMnO4 and nanosponge impregnated with 0, 4, 7 and 10% KMnO4 respectively in packages. Findings of the investigations showed that the nanosponges impregnated by 7 or 10% KMnO4 could preserve the quality of cantaloupe over time by maintaining its color and flesh firmness which could be a result of ethylene absorption. Nanozeolite covered with 7% KMnO4 was also a good compound to preserve the fruit firmness. Image processing features including Entropy was increased and Homogeneity was decreased during cold storage whereas, fruits that are treated with nanosponge impregnated with 10% KMnO4 showed less Entropy and more Homogeneity than other treatments. Moreover, all KMnO4 treated fruits had better values of flesh firmness and image textural parameters than control. A significant correlation was observed between flesh firmness and image parameters. In total, nano-materials showed acceptable performance in extending the postharvest life of cantaloupes based on the fruit firmness and our findings illustrated that the image processing technique can be used to assess the quality of cantaloupe fruits during storage.
Mansoureh Danesh; Mahmoud Lotfi; Shiva Azizinia
Abstract
Iran is a part of the secondary centre of origin of melons, and therefore, there is a wealth of genetic variation of these species in this country. The Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphism (AFLP) marker was applied to investigate the genetic variations among five major Iranian melon cultigens (Cucumis ...
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Iran is a part of the secondary centre of origin of melons, and therefore, there is a wealth of genetic variation of these species in this country. The Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphism (AFLP) marker was applied to investigate the genetic variations among five major Iranian melon cultigens (Cucumis melo) and ‘Ananasi’ as a general well-known cultivar. Ten primer pairs were used on 90 individuals producing 318 polymorphic fragments, with an average of 31.8 fragments per primer combination. The polymorphism rates ranged from 80 to 100%. The genetic similarities among accessions were calculated according to Dice’s Similarity Index and used to construct a dendrogram based on the Unweighted Pair Group Method with Arithmetic Average (UPGMA). The genetic distance estimates based on AFLPs ranged from 0.29 to 0.63, with a mean of 47±0.3. Iranian melon genotypes and the ‘Ananasi’ cultivar were considered as two separate groups on the cluster analysis. The principal coordinate analysis showed a separate allocation of the melon cultivar groups. The results demonstrated a wide diversity of Iranian melon cultigens. The high number of alleles and the high expected genetic diversity detected with the AFLP marker indicated that the Iranian melon cultigens had distinctive characteristics and were an important genetic diversity pool, which made them a valuable source of breeding materials.
Amin Hassankhah; Kourosh Vahdati; Mahmoud Lotfi; Masoud Mirmasoumi; John Preece; Mohammad Hassan Assareh
Abstract
Plantlets grown in conventional tissue culture systems usually encounter physiological and anatomical abnormalities including inability to photosynthesize, low chlorophyll content, open stomata, lack of a cuticle layer in the leaf, abnormal xylem parenchyma etc. Photoautotrophic and photomixotrophic ...
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Plantlets grown in conventional tissue culture systems usually encounter physiological and anatomical abnormalities including inability to photosynthesize, low chlorophyll content, open stomata, lack of a cuticle layer in the leaf, abnormal xylem parenchyma etc. Photoautotrophic and photomixotrophic systems could diminish these problems. The purpose of this study was to increase the chlorophyll content and photosynthetic ability of shoots grown in vitro and to improve the adaptation of walnut plantlets. Walnut apical leaf buds were cultured in vessels containing DKW medium supplemented with 0, 15, 30 and 45 g L-1of sucrose. The vessels were closed with a clear polypropylene lid with two syringe filters on the lid (V1) or with a 50 mm microporous polypropylene membrane (V2). Natural ventilation had a significant effect on most of the growth indices. Furthermore, different levels of sucrose had significant effects on growth characteristics. Natural ventilation increased chlorophyll content significantly. By using ventilated vessels containing 15 g L-1 sucrose, the total chlorophyll was significantly increased. Stomata under non-ventilated conditions were spherical with wide openings, whereas those in ventilated vessels were elliptical with narrow openings. As a result, ventilated vessels with 15 g L-1of sucrose produced healthy plantlets.
