Fruit Produce Facts English
Recommendations for Maintaining Postharvest Quality
Maturity & Quality
A minimum juice content by volume of 28 or 30% depending on grade; color lemons picked at the dark-green stage have the longest postharvest life while those picked fully-yellow must be marketed more rapidly.
Temperature & Controlled Atmosphere
12-14°C (54-57°F) depending on cultivar, maturity-ripeness stage at harvest, production area, and duration of storage and transport (can be up to 6 months).
Optimum Relative Humidity
Rates of Respiration
To calculate heat production multiply ml CO2/kg·hr by 440 to get Btu/ton/day or by 122 to get kcal/metric ton/day.
Rates of Ethylene Production
Responses to Ethylene
If degreeing is desired, lemons can be treated with 1-10 ppm ethylene for 1-3 days at 20 to 25°C (68-77°F), but this exposure may accelerate deterioration rate and decay incidence
Responses to Controlled Atmospheres (CA)
CA of 5-10% O2 and 0-10% CO2 can delay senescence including loss of green color of lemons. Fungistatic CO2 levels (10-15%) are not used because they may induce off-flavors due to accumulation of fermentative volatiles, especially if O2 levels are below 5%. Removal of ethylene from lemon storage facilities can reduce rate of senescence and decay incidence.
Physiological and Physical Disorders
Chilling injury. Symptoms include pitting, membranous staining, and red blotch. Severity depends upon cultivar, production area, harvest time, maturity-ripeness stage at harvest, and time-temperature of postharvest handling operations. Moderate to severe chilling injury is usually followed by decay.
Oil spotting (Oleocellosis). Breaking of oil cells due to physical stress on turgid fruits causes release of the oil that damages surrounding tissues. Avoiding harvesting lemons when they are very turgid and careful handling reduce severity of this disorder.
Green mold. Caused by Penicillium digitatum which penetrates the fruit rind through wounds. Symptoms begin as water-soaked area at the fruit surface followed by growth of colorless mycelium, then sporulation (green color).
Blue Mold. Caused by Penicillium italicum which can penetrate the uninjured peel and can spread from one lemon to adjacent lemons. Symptoms are similar to green mold except that the spores are blue.
Altenaria rot. Caused by Alternaria citri which enters the lemons through their buttons. Preharvest treatment with gibberellic acid or postharvest treatment with 2,4-D delay senescence of the buttons and subsequent decay by Alternaria.
Use of Materials
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The information in this fact sheet represents our best understanding of the current state of knowledge at the time of the latest update, and does not represent an exhaustive review of all research results. Links to any of these UC Postharvest Technology Center pages are permitted, but no endorsement of the linking site or products mentioned in the linking page is intended or implied by such a link.
How to Cite
Author(s) names. Initial publication or update date (located at the top). Title. Link to the specific Produce Fact Sheet webpage (Accessed date)
Example: Cantwell, M. and T. Suslow. 2002. Lettuce, Crisphead: Recommendations for Maintaining Postharvest Quality.