Extending Shelf Life and Maintaining Quality of Tomato Fruit by Calcium Chloride, Hydrogen Peroxide, Chitosan, and Ozonated Water

Said A Shehata,Emad A Abdeldaym,Karima F Abdelgawad,Mohamed M El-Mogy,Said Z Abdelrahman,Mona M A Megahed

doi:10.3390/horticulturae7090309

Said A Shehata, Emad A Abdeldaym + Show 4 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/horticulturae7090309

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Abstract

Tomatoes are perishable fruit that makes them deteriorate rapidly during the post-harvest chain. Therefore, the effect of calcium chloride (CaCl2), chitosan, hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), and ozonated water on the storage abil\ity and quality of tomato fruit (Solanumlycopersicum L. cv. 448) stored at 10 °C for 28 d was studied. Weight loss, firmness, fruit color, total soluble solids (TSS), titratable acidity, total carotenoids, and ascorbic acid content (AsA) of treated tomato fruit were recorded. Our results revealed that all tested treatments significantly extended the shelf-life and maintained quality of tomato fruit compared to the control. Chitosan and CaCl2 were the most effective treatments in maintaining quality attributes. Furthermore, a correlation study suggested that AsA and total carotenoids played a vital role in conserving tomato fruit quality during storage. PC1 had strong positive loading for pH, appearance, firmness, AsA, TSS, carotene, fruit color (L* & b*) and a strong negative loading for lycopene content, color (a), weight loss, and color index. PC2 had high positive loading for total acidity and total sugar content.

Highlights

Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) is considered one of the most important vegetable crops worldwide for fresh market and processed products due to its health and economic importance [1]
Previous study has shown that chitosan coating improves the external appearance and visual quality of fruits and vegetables, which is consistent with our findings [20]
The results of this study indicate that tomato fruit treated with chitosan or CaCl2 were the most applicable treatments for retarding tomato fruit repining and extending shelf-life

Summary

Introduction

Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) is considered one of the most important vegetable crops worldwide for fresh market and processed products due to its health and economic importance [1]. It has been reported that tomato fruit have a considerable value of the most important antioxidants such as lycopene, carotenoids, vitamin C, and minerals, which can play a vital role for suppressing the development of some human diseases including prostate, colon, and breast cancers [2]. Tomatoes are harvested at various maturity stages, including green mature, breaker, turning, light red, and full red. Fruit and vegetables quality is mainly affected by postharvest conditions such as transportation and storage conditions [4]. Some previous postharvest application has been utilized to extend the shelf-life of tomatoes during storage such as using hydrogen sulfide [5], chitosan coating [6], abscisic acid [7], and the use of essential oils [8].

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