Salicylic acid maintained quality and enhanced shelf life of tomato ‘Samrudhi’ at refrigerated storage

Abstract

Tomatoes are a frequently consumed fruit vegetable of the Solanaceae family and is rich in nutraceuticals. It faces rapid deterioration in edible quality during ambient storage, while refrigerated storage generally causes chilling injury. Therefore, an attempt was made with salicylic acid (SA), a safe phenolic having identified anti-ethylene effect, to evaluate its effect on shelf life and quality of tomatoes stored in refrigerated conditions. Fruits of tomato cultivar 'Samrudhi' at pink to light red stage were treated with different concentrations of salicylic acid (0.2-1.2 mM) along with control (water dipped) and were kept at 4-5°C with 65-80% relative humidity in four replications following completely randomized design. Results showed that SA treated fruits had better retention than control. At 21 days after storage (DAS), fruits kept as control showed maximum weight loss (14.65%) compared with the fruits treated with SA at 1.2 mM (5.88%). Fruits treated with SA at 1.2 mM had minimum chilling injury index (1.42), having high TSS (5.76 °Brix) and ascorbic acid (17.18 mg 100 g-1) retention. SA treated fruit in relatively higher concentration (0.8-1.2 mM), maintained fruit quality attributes with consistent intensification of carotenoids and lycopene even at 21 DAS. Shelf life was recorded maximum (33.25 days) in SA 1.2 mM treated fruits followed by SA 1.0 mM (30.25 days) compared with control (23.75 days).