FRUIT STORAGE IN N.Z.

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 233, 21 December 1927, Page 13

FRUIT STORAGE IN N.Z.

fourth edition

EXPERT’S REPORT

RESEARCH recommended WELLINGTON, Tuesday. (From Our Resident Reporter.) Insufficient attention Has been paid to the effect of the storage temperature on the quality of fruit after it was removed from store and came upon the market, said the report of Dr. F. Kidd, of the Cambridge low-temperature research station, on the handling of New Zealand fruit. T'HE report -which has Just been released stated that the Dominion appeared to be on a par with other countries. The depreciation of fruit between the time it reached the consumer from the store seemed to Dr. Kidd to be worthy of study. Fruit should not be allowed to lose pit, re than 5 per cent, of its weight by evaporation during the whole period of its storage and the air movements and humidity should bo adjusted to that Dr. Kidd states that much of the fruit he had seen after it had been stored five or six months struck him as being excessively shrivelled. From die commercial point of view he believed that the apple and pear Industry in New Zealand aimed at a storage period of nine months. In his general conclusions, Dr. Kidd suggested that technical research of an imperial character was needed to systematise information for the guidance of cool storage engineers in regard to the optimum storage temperatures for different varieties of New Zealand apples and pears, and soil variants of these varieties. He suggested that the work should he undertaken by the Department of .scientific and Industrial Research. For the control of physical conditions the most efficient equipment embodied the following: It) Cooling by forced air circulation over a battery of brine or duet experimental pipes in a separate battery cham--111 (2) Independent control of humidity by p brine spray, the concentration of which could be varied, or a system of reheating. after super-cooling. (3) Floor to celling circulation with reversible fan.