Effect of ozonation on table grapes preservation in cold storage.

Table grapes artificially inoculated with B. Cinerea were tested under four different ozonation strategies in order to achieve prolongation of table grapes' shelf-life time. Decay incidence, external disease appearance, number of infected grapes, weight loss and a variety of quality parameters such as sugars and proteins content were checked after every 3 days. No significant alteration of table grapes quality characteristics was observed after their exposure to ozone atmosphere. Moreover, the low ozone dosage process (0.3 ppm) caused sufficient restriction of fruit decay due to fungal contamination and secured a 40-days-period of storage time. However, the observed weight loss was somewhat higher on the treated samples compared to the untreated ones. From technical and economical point of view the low dosage (0.3 ppm) ozonation process on a daily basis combined with the cold storage appears to a very promising method for table grapes preservation.