The individual influences of high CO2 on chilling injury suppression of ‘Merah Delima’ papaya fruit

Abstract

‘Merah Delima’ papaya is chilling-sensitive products, and injured when stored below threshold-temperature. Modified Atmosphere Packaging (MAP) is the promising method to reduce chilling injury (CI) because it creates gas composition with low O2 and high CO2 inside the packed product. Too high CO2 concentration inside the packed one causes physiological damage of fruit. This study was carried out to investigate the individual effect of high CO2 in suppressing CI in ‘Merah Delima’ papaya fruit. Papaya was stored at 10 °C for 16 days under high CO2 concentration of 4%, 6% CO2 with 21% O2, Balance N2) and ambient air as the control. After storage at 10 °C, fruits were transferred to ambient air at temperature 25 °C for 1 week to evaluate the progress of CI symptoms. Quality parameters including weight loss, firmness as physical indices, skin colour as sensory evaluation and electrolyte leakage and malondialdehyde (MDA) content as CI indices were evaluated. The result of study showed that individual high CO2 concentration reduced development of CI in papaya fruit compared to ambient air. However, too high CO2 concentration did not give beneficial effect on CI suppression of ‘Merah Delima’ papaya fruit