Abstract
With the introduction of cold storage in date palm cultivation areas, cold storage has been gaining popularity as it allows for dates consumption at any time of the year. In this study, the quality of two date cultivars, 'Khalas' and 'Sukkary', commonly grown in Saudi Arabia, were studied under cold storage. The chosen storage conditions were 12 months at 5°C. Data of fruit quality were collected at harvest, after 3, 6, 9 and 12 months, respectively of storage. Physicochemical characteristics of stored date fruits, such as moisture, Total Soluble Solids (TSS), tannins, pH, water activity, firmness, color, fruit weight, length and width, were measured. The results showed that cold storage and packing type could significantly affect physical and chemical quality of date fruits. Significant differences in fruit length, width and date seed width, were observed. Physical attributes such as fruit weight, length, width and date seed length, were significantly reduced due to storage period. Firmness of date fruits increased with the increase of storage time. There was significant effect of package type on TSS and water activity of Sukkary date. However, packing type had no significant effect on chemical characteristics for Khalas date. Storage time significantly affected moisture content and pH of date fruits. Water activity and pH of date fruits decreased during storage period. Packing type significantly affected color properties of Sukkary date compared with Khalas. Lightness, redness and yellowness showed significant differences during storage period. Lightness and yellowness increased significantly during storage time, while redness decreased significantly at same conditions. Cold storage is capable of being a viable alternative that allows for long term storage of date fruits.
Highlights
Date palm is grown extensively in arid and semiarid regions of the world, such as North Africa, the Arabian Peninsula and South Asian countries
Effect of cold storage time and packing type on physical properties of date fruits: Packing type could affect the physical properties of date fruits (Table 1)
Our results showed that cold storage and packing type could affect the quality of both tested date cultivars, to varying degrees
Summary
Date palm is grown extensively in arid and semiarid regions of the world, such as North Africa, the Arabian Peninsula and South Asian countries. It is one of the oldest plants cultivated by human beings and has been used as food for around 6,000 years. The world production of date fruits has increased from about 4.6 million tons in 1994 to 7.68 million tons in 2010 and expectations are that their production yield will continue to increase (Al-Farsi and Lee, 2008; Ashraf and Hamidi-Esfahani, 2011; Tang et al, 2013). The process is mainly based on slowing down of fruit maturity
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