A research group led by Professor Ryuhei Nakano and Associate Professor Fumio Fukuda of the Graduate School of Environmental and Life Sciences (Agriculture), Okayama University has established an export and distribution system for Japanese high-grade peaches for East Asia.

 In East Asia, it is customary to send gifts at the annual events of the Mid-Autumn Festival and the Mid-Autumn Festival.Japanese fruit peaches are also preferred as gifts, and cannot be stably exported due to high demand, short shelf life, long-distance export by air, and short harvest period. was.Also, storing peaches below 5 ° C will cause chilling injury.

 In this research, we worked on temperature control and clarification of chilling injury using the fruits of "Okayama Yume Hakuto".As a result, it was found that when the mixture was kept at around 0 ° C and moved to room temperature after 2 weeks, it ripened without causing chilling injury, and when it was kept at around 10 ° C, it slowly softened and became ready to eat in about 2 weeks.Based on these characteristics, we started to build a distribution system when actually exporting to the East Asian region.This distribution system combines sea shipping, ice temperature storage and air transportation.
First, an export test was conducted using containers set at 1 ° C and 10 ° C.As a result, it was found that it is necessary to change the export method according to the variety and characteristics because the state of the fruit after export differs depending on the variety and harvest maturity.In response to this, we conducted export tests by variety and harvest time.As a result, in the marine transportation of varieties that are harvested early, by adjusting the maturity for a few days before distribution and storage, it was possible to export the fruits in almost the same condition as the fruits that were airlifted immediately after harvesting.However, it was found that air transportation is more suitable than the method using a low-temperature container for varieties that are easily harvested at an early stage and are prone to astringency.It was also found that the sales time can be adjusted by storing at ice temperature after harvesting and before air transportation.

 In the future, Okayama University plans to cultivate late-maturing varieties for export, spread its practicality, and carry out a peach export model project with the cooperation of local buyers.

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