Los and Smith, E. 
1954. Relation of Bruising and Other Factors to Blue Mold Decay of 
Delicious;Apples. .U.°S....Dept ..Agr.<Cin. 935 152pp. 
TERMINAL MARKET HANDLING 
Wholesaling 
Much research on the prevention of bruises on apples has been reported 
in another part of this bulletin. A few such studies particularly concern 
terminal markets. Herrick and co-workers (18) i/ found that as fatigue of 
workers increased, care in handling produce decreased. They found that much 
fatigue can be minimized by the elimination of vertical lifting associated with 
loading and unloading produce. Handlers should be instructed to keep as many 
as possible of their movements on a horizontal plane. Effort has been wasted 
when the top box of apples on a two-wheel truck has been lifted from the floor 
of the car and when the bottom box on the truck was taken from the top layer in 
the car. Wasted efforts cause wasted apples. See also (26). 
Other practices in terminal markets that cause bruising of apples are 
related to supervision. Often parts or whole loads fall from skids or pallets 
because workers have not been taught how to alternate the position of packages 
in successive layers so as to cross-tie them together (18). Boxes of apples 
that bulge on the sides or tops should be stacked on the flat side or on the 
end of the package. See also (14). No boxes should be stacked so high that 
the warehouse workers must walk on them to build the stacks (5). Whenever 
boxes are stacked this way, some apples invariably will be damaged (5, 18, 37). 
Bogardus and Lutz (3) have cautioned that wholesale warehouses should 
provide adequate refrigeration at all times to maintain the quality of produce. 
Storage temperatures for most varieties of apples should be 30° to 32° F. G5, 
40). Comin (8) and Bisno (2) reported that the deterioration of such apples 
approximately doubles for each 10° rise in storage tempereture above 32°. How- 
ever, some varieties require 38° to 40° F. (35, 40). Most varieties of apples 
freeze at about 28° to 29° (13, 38). Apples should be stored at 85 to 90 per- 
cent relative humidity (40). To maintain high humidity, the refrigeration 
should be so designed that not more than a 2-degree difference exists between 
the refrigerated coil surface and the storage air temperature (3). 
When sealed film-lined boxes of apples are removed from cold storage, it 
is recommended that the liners be either perforated (28) or removed or slit open 
(12, 35, 39), if the apples are to remain more than a couple of days at room 
temperature. Otherwise, the apples may develop off-flavors. 
McIntosh apples after removal from storage may change their flesh color 
from yellow to greenish-yellow and then back to yellow if kept at room tempera- 
ture (34). Francis (10) and co-workers determined that the change back to 
yellow is mainly due to synthesis of carotene, but the change toward greenish- 
yellow may be due to the balance between carotene and chlorophyll. The amount 
of chlorophyll decreased slightly when the fruit was left at room temperature. 
It was concluded that the main color change was due to a change in carotene. 
Air spaces between loads, as well as between the produce and storage 
walls, should be provided to avoid the occurrence of warm areas (3). In 1958, 
1/ Underscored numbers in parentheses refer to Literature Cited, p. 131. 
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