PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR: Dr Shelley Johnson
LEAD INSTITUTION: Stellenbosch University
BENEFICIARY: Stone Fruit
The CATTS technology provides a mitigation treatment that will allow phytosanitary control for Japanese plums that cannot be cold-stored for extended periods at -0.6 °C. This technology will, therefore, open up overseas markets for South African grown Japanese plums that must be stored under intermittent warming regimes while in transit.
Furthermore, if the findings of the study show that high temperature pre-conditioning reduces chilling injury significantly in Japanese plums, the CATTS treatment could replace the currently used intermittent warming regime. The intermittent warming regime causes temperature management problems in integral containers (used for the export of Japanese plums from South Africa), which could be solved by using a pre-storage high-temperature CATTS pre-conditioning followed by single-temperature storage at 0 °C, while still controlling phytosanitary pests.
