The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of postharvest application of 1-methylcyclopropene (1-MCP, 625 nL.L-1) and cooling time of 'Gala' apples (slow cooling (SC) for eight days or fast cooling (FC) for three days) on the juiciness loss, flesh firmness, soluble pectin content (SPC) and pectinmethylesterase (PME) and polygalacturonase (PG) activities after 6 months under refrigerated storage (RS). The storage temperature was 0.5°C. At the end of the RS period, and more 7 days at 20°C, the juiciness, flesh firmness, SPC, PME and PG were evaluated. Application of 1-MCP resulted in the highest firmness and it did not affect the juiciness of the apples after 6 months in RS; the fast cooling compared to slow cooling maintained apples juicier and firmer after 7 days at 20°C.
Juiciness; Malus domestica; quality