Flender/Flender Gear Units/Bevel-helical speed reduction gearbox B3
or both nongerminating and germinating spores, heating and irradia- tion produced greater interaction than heating and chilling (Moy, . 7.2.1

Tropical FruitsTropical fruits are frequently wasted as result of deterioration during handling, transport, and storage caused by the senescence of

the fruit combined with fungal decay and infesta- tion with pests such as fruit ies and weevils (Grandison et al.,

. Extension of storage or shelf life through control of postharvest rots is the most difcult goal of irradiation offruits

and vegetables. In most instances, doses of irradiation required to inactivate patho-gens result in tissue damage (Heather, . widely reported exception is the straw- berry. This fruit has been shown to be tolerant to irradiation and can be treated at dosesthat eliminate infections of fruit rot. The minimal effective absorbed dose required is in the range of 1.5 to 2 kGy, some- times as high as 3 kGy (Dennison and Ahmed, . Provided that fruits are subsequentlykept cool, high quality can be maintained for more than 1 days. The result of 1.5 kGyapplied to strawberry coated with cross-linked edible lm (Lacroix and Vachon, indicated that combined treatments were effective in reducing water losses and moldgrowth. The treatment was effective in extending the shelf life by more than 1 days when the fruit was stored at 4 . Coating with edible lm can also be efcient in delaying browning by acting as an oxygen barrier or scavenger (Le tien et al., . Anotherpromising way of increasing the effectiveness of radiation in the control of food-bornemicroorganisms without adversely affecting organoleptic qualities of foods is to combineit with heat treatment. However, the sequence of the application of the combination mayalso play an important role (Farkas, . In the case of fungi, the heat treatment preced-ing irradiation usually results in greater antimicrobial effect of all combinations (Padwal- Desai, . With bacterial spores, the reverse order of