**Table 3.**

*Ozone treatment on some fresh fruits and vegetables.*


*Alternative Green and Novel Postharvest Treatments for Minimally Processed Fruits… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.111978*

**Table 4.**

 *Salicylic acid (SA) treatment on some fresh fruits and vegetables (FFVs).*

#### **2.4 Oxalic acid treatments**

Oxalic acid (OA) is a common organic acid found in plants. OA can enhance the postharvest life and quality of fruits and vegetables. OA retards ripening and senescence, controls post-harvest diseases, inhibits enzymatic browning, reduces decay, and alleviates chilling injury in fruits and vegetables [6, 42]. Exogenous OA induces systemic resistance against fungal, bacterial, and viral diseases in plants. Further, endogenous OA induces intrinsic heat tolerance and increases antioxidant capacity in plants [6]. The recent application of OA for the improvement of postharvest life and quality control during storage has been successful for some fruits and vegetables [6]. OA is abundant in some plant species, such as beets and beet greens (*Beta vulgaris* L.), bell peppers (*Capsicum annuum* L.), spinach (*Spinacia oleracea* L.), swiss chard (*Beta vulgaris* L. cv. Cicla), poppy seeds (*Papaver somniferum*), purslane (*Portulaca oleracea* L.), sorrel (*Oxalis corniculata* L.), and rhubarb (*Rheum officinale* Baill) [6].

Aqueous OA solutions have been applied to fruits and vegetables, including apples, banana, kiwi, mango, peach, tomatoes, lettuce, endives, and other vegetables at millimolar concentrations to delay ripening, quality deterioration, control of postharvest diseases, and alleviate chilling injuries [6, 43, 44]. In such cases the storage life of the various OA treatments were extended [6, 45]. **Table 5** shows the effect of OA treatments on the storage life of some fruits and vegetables.
