Introduction: The use of phytosanitary irradiation (PI) as a measure is continuously increasing in many countries. In Israel, irradiation has commercially been used for sanitation of dry produce, and PI is currently being considered for fresh produce applications as well. The key objective of the current study was to examine the potential benefit of PI to the Israeli agriculture export, and especially for citrus fruit, where ‘Orri’ mandarin (Orri) is the premium exported variety.

Objectives: The main objective of this study was to assess the effects of PI on the quality and postharvest storage performance of Orri.

Materials and methods: Orri were irradiated in a Co-60 industrial tote irradiator by manually exposing the fruit to two doses of 98.5±10.2 Gy and 282.4±26.9 Gy. The irradiated and non-irradiated control fruits were then stored at 5°C and 90% RH for 4 or 9 weeks, and afterwards transferred for one or two more weeks to shelf-life conditions at 20°C. Fruit quality was evaluated at time zero and after the various storage periods, and included measurements of: firmness; weight loss; peel color; peel damage and decay; total soluble solids (TSS) and titratable acidity (TA); vitamin C (ascorbic acid) content; ethanol levels; and flavor acceptability.

Results: The key finding of the current study was that the tested PI treatments did not affect any of the quality parameters of Orri. All of the detected changes observed in the irradiated fruit during prolong postharvest storage were not significantly different from those observed in control non-irradiated fruit.

Conclusions: Our findings demonstrated that PI had no adverse effects on the quality and postharvest storage performance of Orri, and thus could be considered as an effective phytosanitary measure.