## 4 Discussion  
### Quality Loss Parameters  
In agreement with this study, MeJA treatment was demonstrated to decrease CI for fruits such as papaya, peach, pomergranates, and loquat, e.g., [20; 22; 23; 24; 27]. MeJA was shown to reduce CI throughout, promoting the expression of heat-shock proteins and regulating arginine metabolism [56]. Furthermore, CI reduction on the MeJA-treated fruits was also likely to be connected to the increase in polyamines (such as putrescine or spermidine) in the cells [15; 34]. These polyamines maintain the ratio between the unsaturated and the saturated fatty acid, which have a key role in the membrane integrity and fluidity [57]. acclimation to low temperatures is highly related to the increase in this fatty acid ratio in the membrane lipids [58], which could result in lower CI symptoms on the MeJA-treated fruits. In SA treatments, previous studies on pomergranates and peach reported that SA and its derivates decreased CI in postharvest treatments [22; 31; 58], which is in agreement with our apricot study. The possible mechanism of the effect of SA on CI was studied by [PERSON] et al. [59] and they indicated that MeSA probably had little direct effect on chilling damage, but it could provide indirectly a reduction in CI by inducing some defense-mechanism responses in the cells. MeJA and MeSA treatments were also compared in the study of [PERSON] et al. [22], but in contrast with this study, the authors concluded that differences among MeJA and MeSA treatments were non-significant for CI. The reasons for the different result are likely to be the differences among applied concentrations, fruit crops and SA derivates used in the two studies. Overall, our results indicate that both compounds (MeJA and SA) could be suitable in reducing CI in apricot fruit. In accordance with our results, some studies also revealed that SA can decrease fruit decay on peach and cherry [26; 60]. Salicylic acid is likely to induce the defense resistance system in fruit tissues, which result in lower FD compared to untreated fruits. In the case of MeJA, our results of the FD reduction by MeJA are also in agreement with the results of previous studies on grapefruit, peach, mango and strawberry. The study of [PERSON] et al. [18] on grapefruit showed that fruit treated with different MeJA concentrations (1 to 50 mmol L\({}^{-1}\)) had less FD compared to untreated fruit. They reported that the MeJA treatments had no direct toxicity effect on the fungus (_Penicillium digitatum_), which causes FD. They suggested that MeJA decreased FD indirectly by enhancing the natural resistance mechanisms of the fruit to fungus infection [18]. The effect of SA and MeJA in reducing FD was also reported by [PERSON] and [PERSON] [26]. The authors demonstrated that the sweet cherry fruit treated with SA (2 mM) or with MeJA (0.2 mM) had lower fruit damage caused by _Monilinia fructicola_ than in the control treatment. The authors reported that SA and MeJA had direct inhibitory effects on the mycelial growth of _M. fructicola_. [PERSON] et al. [19] and [PERSON] et al. [61] showed that MeJA treatments reduced fruit decay in mango and strawberry, respectively, during both CS and SL periods. The possible mechanism of MeJA in reducing fruit decay may involve direct inhibition on the pathogen and/or indirect mechanism through induced resistance. The observed suppression of fruit decay of apricot in this study supported the hypothesis that MeJA can prolong the postharvest health of the fruit. No previous studies compared the joint effect of MeJA and SA on fruit decay and we showed a similar efficacy for both compounds. We demonstrated significant correlation, significant regression and significant PCA (in PC1) relationships between FD and CI in both MeJA and SA treatments (Tables 2 and 3, Figures 3 and 4), which were not demonstrated by previous studies.