| 【PURPOSE】Postharvest handling transforms fruit and vegetable products into commodities.As an intermediate link between production and retail,postharvest not only assumes the important responsibility of increasing the added value of agricultural products,but also ensures their quality and safety,being one of the indispensable parts to achieve high-quality development of fruit and vegetable industries and to follow developed countries in becoming a major horticulture power.A comprehensive review of the development history and research progress of basic research on fruit and vegetable postharvest over the past 40 years,combined with the survey of major problems and demands in postharvest industry,will be able to support researchers making scientific decisions about where to go and how should we go in this research field after entering a new era.【METHOD】The paper is based on relevant articles on fruit and vegetable postharvest from 1981 to 2020.The data come from Web of Science(Wo S)Core Collection Database.We use Intelligent Support System for Strategic Studies(ISS)version 1.0 for quantitative analysis of article,country and journal,and apply Cite Space 5.7.R2 to the co-occurrence analysis of Wo S category and term and co-citation analysis of cited reference,these results could indicate the development trends in fruit and vegetable postharvest basic research.China Agriculture Research System,or CARS,has set up13 postharvest production positions related to horticulture,relying on CARS,we investigate and analyze the problems and technology needs in seven fruit postharvest industries(citrus,pear,litchi and longan,apple,grape,peach,banana),three vegetable(primary vegetables,potato,edible fungi)and two grain postharvest industries(sweet potato,cassava)【RESULT】(1)Bibliometric analysis of fruit postharvest articles.From 1981 to 2020,there are 18,472 articles related to fruit postharvest in Wo S Core Collection Database and the number of articles shows a growing trend.The top 5 countries with the most articles in recent five years are China,the United States,Brazil,Spain and Italy.While the number of China’s articles is still increasing,the number of articles in the other four countries is close to unchanged.China’s articles are nearly 3.2 times the number of those in the U.S..In the past five years,23 percent of the total articles are appeared in five publications,they are Postharvest Biology and Technology,Scientia Horticulturae,Food Chemistry,Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture and Journal of Food Processing and Preservation.The results of bibliometric analysis reveal a trend of multidisciplinary integration state of current basic research on postharvest horticulture,with the knowledge from Agronomy,Horticulture,Plant Sciences,and Food Science and Technology etc.as the knowledge base,gradually introducing knowledge from other disciplinary fields such as Engineering,Computer Science,Environmental Science,Material Science and Polymer Science.Fruit postharvest is becoming a research field with extremely rich contents that integrates multi-disciplinary knowledge.The research framework in the field of fruit postharvest was basically set up during1981 to 2000.The basic research involves the study of postharvest physiological changes of fruits,mechanisms of postharvest physiological disorders and postharvest diseases as well as their prevention and control,and postharvest commercial handling of fruits.The research focus in recent years includes nondestructive testing,resistance induction of fruit,biological control represented by antagonistic bacteria and plant hormones,edible coating,and physical treatment methods to maintain the postharvest quality of fruits through the regulation of environmental conditions.(2)Bibliometric analysis of vegetable postharvest articles.From 1981 to 2020,there are 3,877 articles related to vegetable postharvest in Wo S Core Collection Database and the number of articles shows a steady growing trend.The top 6 countries with the most articles in recent five years are China,the U.S.,Italy,Spain,South Korea and India.The number of articles in China changes significantly in recent five years,from less than 40 to more than 100,while the number of articles in the other five countries has not increased by much.The number of articles in the U.S.remained at about 40 each year,and the number of articles in the remaining four countries fluctuates around20.The journal Postharvest Biology and Technology has the greatest number of relevant articles in this field,representing about 10 percent of total articles.The other four major journals in this research field are Journal of Food Processing and Preservation,Lwt-Food Science and Technology,Food Chemistry and Scientia Horticulturae.Similar to fruit postharvest research field,the basic research in vegetable postharvest also shows a trend of interdisciplinary integration.The basic research is around vegetable postharvest physiology and postharvest handlings to achieve quality improvement and shelf-life extension.The research focus in recent years includes antioxidant,foodborne pathogen,essential oil,edible coating and UV-C.(3)The similarity between the bibliometric results of fruit and vegetable postharvest.The research focus has shifted from traditional postharvest physiology to molecular biology and omics research in recent years,centering on mechanism analysis of quality changes during postharvest.Growing concern over food safety and operating costs of businesses among the public urges research interests to move toward the direction of greening,mechanization,automatization and intelligentize.(4)Questionnaire survey results of major fruit and vegetable postharvest industries in China.Questionnaire survey findings indicate that the main problems that many companies experience include substandard fresh-keeping technologies,inadequate cold storage facilities,lack of qualified talents,sufficient land and fund,overdependence on imported facilities and intelligent management system,insufficient deep processing capacity and environment problems brought by postharvest waste.【 CONCLUSION 】(1)Contrasting the results of bibliometric analysis and questionnaire survey,we can infer that postharvest basic research is incompatible with industrial needs.The reasons for this reality appear to be related to the following reasons: First,there is a time lag between basic research and industrial application.Second,insufficient degree of multidisciplinary integration.Apart from increasing cooperation between disciplines,the researchers themselves are supposed to fully master the multidisciplinary knowledge they need.Third,inappropriate research paradigm.Basic research should develop from a single link research perspective to a whole industry chain research perspective and make full use of big data to achieve quantitative prediction and artificial intelligence.Forth,less-connected relationship among enterprises,universities and research institutes and lack of systematic research.As a result,the research findings among universities and scientific research institutes are redundant and poorly connected,making it difficult to achieve the integration and industrial application of basic research results.(2)It is expected that the development trend of postharvest basic research in fruit and vegetable include: First,the integration of the most advanced life science technology and traditional technology to achieve a fully understanding of the law and mechanism of biochemical changes in fruit and vegetable products during postharvest.Second,disciplines such as Engineering Technology,Information Science and Material Science will have a more important role to play in basic research,to help create a fully automated information-based postharvest management system.Third,doing basic research in a systematic way adapted to specific environmental conditions and crop varieties that can go along with industrial needs.Forth,heavy investment in green and efficient cold chain construction and postharvest handling technology,to achieve whole cold chain and make postharvest handling standards and rules. |
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