Abstract
Fruits are subjected to a variety of vibration stress during the transportation from a production area to markets. Vibration inputs are transmitted from the transporting vehicle through the packaged fruit. And the steady state vibration input may cause serious internal damage of fruit. Product quality of fruits declines by various factors while they are stored right after harvesting and among the substance in charge of post ripening action, ethylene ($C_2H_4$) biosynthesis increases fruits' respiration process after harvesting and decreases storage expectancy. Ethylene production of apples rapidly increases while storage duration becomes longer. This tendency is much clearer for the apples with vibration stress at input acceleration level. When there was no vibration stress, change in ethylene production level of apples are not very large during storage. Ethylene production rates inside the gas collecting container increased significantly ($p{\leq}0.05$) after 24 hours storage, particularly for apples with vibration stress ($0.7{\mu}l/kg{\cdot}hr$ (1st stack), $0.78{\mu}l/kg{\cdot}hr$ (2nd stack), $0.96{\mu}l/kg{\cdot}hr$ (3rd stack)); whereas less ethylene was produced in control apples ($0.18{\mu}l/kg{\cdot}hr$ during storage. Also ethylene production rates of apples according to the stack position were significantly different ($p{\leq}0.05$). The vibration stress clearly accelerated the degradation of apple quality during storage, resulting in increased ethylene production.