الفهرس 
Effect of essential oils treatments on quality characteristics of apple fruit during storage in Egypt and Morocco
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Abstract
Apple is considered as one of the most important commercial cultivar in north Africa. Anna apple (Malus domestica, Borkh) is a low chilling required cultivar spreading in many tropical and subtropical areas. During storage, apple is exposed to different types of microbial decay, by a pathogenic fungus. Natural plant products as essential oils, among the numerous alternatives, are catching the attention of researchers worldwide, due to their biodegradability. Thus, this study was conducted to examine the effect of spraying the essential oils from celery, basil and rosemary on Anna apple fruit essential quality characteristics during cold storage. The fruit were sprayed with celery, basil and rosemary essential oils of (1, 2.5 and 5% each). The sprayed fruit were stored for 120 days at 1oC. In this experiment, some physical characteristics such as weight loss percentages, decayed fruit percentages, fruit firmness, in addition to total sugars, titratabl acidity, total soluble solids, total soluble pectin, total phenols, antioxidant activity and Pectinase(PC), Polyphenol oxidase (PPO) enzyme activities were determined. Antifungal activities of the three essential oils against the grey and blue mould were measured. Chemical compositions of the essential oil were identified by GC-MS. The results indicated that, changes of physical and chemical properties of the fruit were delayed by spraying with essential oil treatments in comparison with the untreated fruit (control). Five percentage of basil essential oil was the most effective treatment by recording the lowest decay percentage (15.72%), the lowest weight loss percentage (5.05%), the highest firmness value (10.87 lb/inch2), the lowest total soluble pectin values (0.57%), the highest antioxidants values (54.20%) and the lowest value of PPO enzyme activity (0.827). While, celery essential oil at 5 % treatment gave the lowest value of PC enzyme activity (0.910) after 120 day of cold storage