The aim of this study was to establish an effective and satisfactory method to control chilling injuries on Tahiti lime. Thus, the fruits that were harvested in Boa Vista, RR, 140 and 150 days after flowering, showed average values of 7.9 and 8.2ºBrix and 6.3 and 6.0mL of citric acid/100mL of flesh and 2.8 and 3.0 pH, respectively in two harvests. After the harvest the fruits were taken to the laboratory of Plant Production/UFRR, selected, cleaned and submitted to the following treatments: T1 - control; T2, T3 and T4 - maintained at 35ºC for 6, 12 and 24 hours, respectively; T5 - intermittent warming at 20ºC for 8 hours, after 5 and 10 days at 1ºC; T6 - intermittent warming at 20ºC for 8 hours, after 10 and 20 days at 1ºC; T7 - ethephon at 1,500 mg.L-1; and T8 - ethephon at 3,000 mg.L-1.The treatments T9 to T16, only differed from T1 to T8, only on the harvest date (10 days after the first one). The experiment was evaluated every 15 days, during 75 days at 1 ± 0.5 ºC and 92 ± 5 % of RU, regarding the chilling injury, visual aspect, lack of fresh mass, soluble solids (SS), titratable acidity (TA), SS/TA (ratio - RT), total chlorophyll and ascorbic acid. The delay of the harvest did not provide any significative effect. All treatments, except the control and intermittent warming in 10 and 20 days, were efficient to control the chilling injury. However, the chemical and thermal conditioning speeded up the metabolism of fruits, mainly concerning the lack of fresh mass and visual aspect characteristics. The higher chlorophyll and ascorbic acid content, as well the best visual aspect, no rottenness incidence and the lower lack of fresh mass were detected on fruits submitted to the intermittent warming at 5 and 10 days. The SS, AT and RT were considered compatible to the quality standard and did not vary statistically among the treatments which had shown resistance to the chilling injury.
post harvest; Citrus latifolia Tanaka; quality; conservation
