Pitaya is a high-value tropical fruit with a postharvest life constrained by rapid physiological deterioration. This study aimed to evaluate the efficacy of chitosan-based (CH) biopolymeric coatings, enriched with ascorbic acid (AA), on the postharvest quality and preservation of pitaya fruits stored under refrigeration (12 °C). The fruits were subjected to different treatments and evaluated for biometric and physicochemical parameters, including weight loss, total soluble solids, pH, titratable acidity, and the SS/TA ratio throughout storage. The results demonstrated that the coatings significantly reduced weight loss (e.g., 4.15% for the CH4AA treatment) and contributed to the maintenance of quality attributes, delaying senescence-associated processes. Among the treatments, the combination of chitosan with ascorbic acid was the most effective in preserving fruit quality, extending the marketable shelf life from 10 to 20 days. These findings indicate that the use of biopolymeric coatings is a promising strategy to prolong the shelf life and maintain the postharvest quality of pitaya, with potential applications in commercial supply chains.

Water scarcity in semi-arid regions motivates the evaluation of unconventional irrigation sources. This study assessed the growth, seed production, and oil quality of Moringa oleifera under irrigation with synthetic saline waters formulated to reproduce the electrical conductivity and major-ion composition of treated oilfield-produced water; no actual produced water was applied. The experiment used a randomized block design in a (3 × 3) + 1 factorial arrangement, with four replicates. Treatments combined three irrigation levels based on crop evapotranspiration (L1 = 33% ETc, L2 = 66% ETc, and L3 = 100% ETc) and three water electrical conductivities (S1 = 0.5, S2 = 2.5, and S3 = 4.5 dS m⁻¹), plus a non-irrigated control. Plant height, stem diameter, dry matter, fruit and seed yield, oil yield, and oil-quality attributes were evaluated. Salinity up to 4.5 dS m⁻¹ did not significantly reduce plant height or stem diameter among irrigated treatments, whereas 100% ETc favored vegetative growth at later evaluations. The highest fruit, seed, and oil yields occurred at 66% and 100% ETc, indicating that 66% ETc can represent a water-saving agronomic compromise when yield is comparable with full irrigation. The 4.5 dS m⁻¹ treatment produced the greatest seed and oil yields. These findings demonstrate moringa tolerance to the tested synthetic saline waters under the experimental conditions, but they should not be extrapolated directly to actual produced water because organic contaminants, trace metals, hydrocarbons, and long-term soil salinization or sodicity were not evaluated.