Assessment of the quality losses of fresh fig fruits during transportation

Abstract

Turkey is one of the main fig fruits producing countries in the World with respective total annual fig fruit productions of approximately 280 000 tons. The protection of the fig fruit quality in the chain between harvesting and marketing is very important. Vibration often causes damages to perishable fruits. Vibration-damaged fruit losses moisture more rapidly than undamaged fruit, further reducing quality. The fruit injury due to vibration is related to the transportation characteristics of vehicles, packaging boxes and the conditions of the roads. The objective of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of packaging box by different materials to decrease the damages of vibration on the quality of fresh fig fruits during transportation. The experiments were carried out in two stages. In the first stage; the frequency and acceleration values of truck were determined during the real transportation. In the second stage, these values were applied on the simulator (shaker) to examine the effect of vibration on fresh figs packaged with three different box. The results showed that the cardboard packaging box was not proper for transporting of the fresh fig fruits in all road conditions. The mass loss of fresh fig fruits packed with cardboard box were found 2.5 times more than extruded and expanded polystyrene boxes at 16 Hz 2.54 ms-2. Sarilop fig variety was more damaged under the rough road. For long highway road conditions, Bursa Black fig variety was found the most affected fig variety.