evaluating the effect of variety and pretreatments on the quality of dried apricots

since the waste of agricultural and horticultural products is high, appropriate methods should be used to produce products with high quality and shelf life for export. in iran a great part of fruits and vegetables are dried conventionally and farmer use so2 gas for preservation and color stability of dried apricots ,but this gas is allergic and carcinogenic and effort to find suitable substitutes for this substance would be an efficient method to the health of the society. so, in this study 3 apricot varieties were selected to evaluate the drying quality and to determine the so2 replacement methods. the selected varieties (noori, khaybei 2 and nasiri) were treated with citric acid, (0.3%), ascorbic acid (0.3%), sodium meta bisulfate (0.4%) and a 50% mixture of ascorbic and citric before drying and then were compared with control samples(without any treatment). after drying, the characteristics such as brix, ph, moisture contents, browning index, acidity and organoleptic properties were evaluated. results showing that the effect of variety on moisture, browning, ph, acidity and organoleptic properties were significant (p<0.01) and the treated samples had significant differences with controls. according to the obtained results the khaybei 2 variety and treatment with the mixture of ascorbic and citric acids were selected as the best treatment in this study.