a comparison of chitosan-clay and fungicide-wax coatings on some quality properties of thomson navel orange during storage

most consumers prefer natural coatings to the chemical ones to act as an enhancement of storage quality of fruits. in this research, quality of thomson oranges coated with chitosan-clay nano composite edible coating plus fungicide-wax chemical coating was compared with a non-coated sample during storage for a period of 3 months through a factorial design (3×4). orange samples were kept in a cold storage at 5oc temperature and 85-90% of relative humidity. the ph, titratable acidity of orange juice, weight loss percentage, peel shear and fracture forces as well as the coefficient of elasticity were assayed during storage. results indicated significant differences among different coatings on all the measured dependent variables except on peel shear force (p