Abstract:

The aim of this experiment was to analyze the fruit volatiles and the main fruit quality traits of “Early Red
Comice” pear fruits treated with 1-methylcyclopropene (1-MCP) at different concentrations: 0.5, 1.0 μL/L and control
(0 μL/L) on the seventh day of shelf life after storage at 0 ℃. The volatile components were identified using solid phase
microextraction (SPME) and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The results showed that: 1) 62 compounds,
categorized into seven different chemical classes, were detected in the mature fruits with 3 different treatments, including 32
esters as the most abundant compounds (accounting for 51.6% of the total aroma compounds) and less than 32 compounds
from six other classes each; 2) the number and amount of total volatiles, the number and total amount of unique aroma
components, and the amounts of ester and terpenes in the 1.0 μL/L 1-MCP treatment were significantly higher than in the
other treatments; 3) markedly lower firmness and decay incidence were observed by using 1.0 μL/L 1-MCP treatment.
Furthermore, we found that the results of volatile composition and fruit quality traits were consistent with sensory evaluation.

Key words: Pyrus communis L., 1-methylcyclopropene, aroma components, SPME-GC-MS, quality traits