387 Carbon Dioxide Enrichment in Mamoncillo Fruit (Melicoccus bijugatus Jacq.) during Storage

Abstract

Mamoncillo fruit, which are very perishable, were harvested at mature ripening stage and stored at gas atmospheres containing of 5.1% CO2, 5.6 % oxygen and 89.3% nitrogen, during 17 days at 10 and 15 ± 2 °C. Characteristics studied were the percent soluble solid content, pH, tritatable acidity (expressed as citric acid), reducing sugars, and total sugars. The SST content showed values ranged between 20.37% to 22.30%, which were high values, but did not show significant differences in the treatments. The pH values were between 3.4 and 3.8 and were highly significant in the interaction between temperature and storage time. The tritatable acidity reported values from 0.99 to 2.24 (as percent citric acid), which had similar behavior in the fruit treated or not with CO2. Reducing sugar values were between 7.79 and 17.99 g•100 g-1 (in base to fresh weight), with highest values at higher storage temperature without CO2 atmosphere. Some times these fruit could be sweeter, such as in this case where the total sugar reached the highest values from 12.92 to 20.64 g•100 g-1, resulting in higher value fruit stored during 3 weeks with CO2 treatment at 15 ± 2 °C. Fruit kept good conditions during 3 weeks stored at 15 ± 2 °C.