Harvest Date and Post Harvest Alkaline Treatment Effects on Quantity and Quality of Kashmar, Iran, Green Raisin

The yield and quality features of raisin are affected by various factors especially harvestdate and dipping solutions. combinations of different harvest date (four harvestdates) and post harvest alkaline emulsion (three alkaline solutions) were tested in vitis viniferal. cv ‘paycamy’ green raisin production in kashmar, khorasan province of iran.such raisin quantitative and qualitative characteristics as: yield, drying ratio (fresh: raisinyield), raisin wastes, sugar content, price, color, homogeneity of color, raisin size, alkalinesolution residues and surface texture of raisin (shrinkage) were assessed. harvest dateresults showed that grape °brix and raisin sugar content increased from 15.5 to 21 and53% to 62% respectively. in addition, fourth harvest yield increased raisin yield up to30% as compared to the first harvest. the amount of wastes resulted from decayed berryin the fourth harvest was higher than those for the other harvest dates, but such qualitativetraits as color, size and texture softness improved through further fruit ripening. interactioneffect of alkaline solution and harvest date on price and raisin size (number ofraisins per 100 g) were significant (p< 0.01). alkaline solution affected raisin waste, thedifferences among post harvest treatments being significant. the color of raisin was notaffected by alkaline solution but it was steadily improved with each succeeding harvestdate.