Abstract:
Tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) fruits due to their high moisture content are spoiled and
deteriorate in short period of time. Once fruits are harvested, respiration and transpiration are the two
major physiological processes that significantly affect storage life and quality of the fruits. However,
effects of these processes can be minimized through optimizing harvesting stage of fruits and applying
physical barriers for oxygen diffusion and moisture migration. The aim of this work was to investigate
the combined effect of stage of harvesting of fruits and application of edible coating materials on
storage life and quality of tomato fruits. Treatment combinations were the three harvesting stages of
the fruits (mature green, turning and light red stages) and two coating materials (pectin and chitosan
with control). Treatments were laid out in a completely randomized design with three replications.
Sample fruits were evaluated periodically for different parameters. The study showed that, coating of
tomato fruits delayed the ripening process with better fruits quality than uncoated ones. Combined
treatment combinations resulted in a significant delay in the change of weight loss, disease incidence,
disease severity and ripening index as compared to control fruits. Moreover, in terms chemical
parameters, coated fruits revealed higher amount of ascorbic acid, lycopene and phenolic contents.
Fruits coated with either chitosan or pectin at turning stage of maturity showed relatively better results
for most of the quality parameters. Maximum shelf life was observed for fruits harvested at turning
stage coated by pectin (17 days) and chitosan (16 days) films than control (10 days) at the same stage
of maturity. Therefore, storage life of the fruits with better quality can be extended by combining
optimum stage of harvesting with use of edible coating materials.
