The Effect of Cold Storage on Tomato Fruit Preservation Variety Davista

Abstract

This study was carried out in cold storage unit of the Department of Horticulture, Faculty of Agriculture University of Tripoli during spring of 2015 in order to evaluate the tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum L.) Variety Davista for its thermal requirement and the effect of these requirement on the period of storage life of the fruits.

The fruits were selected from three stages of maturity (mature green, breaker and red- ripe stage). The fruits were stored under three storage temperature   0 , 5 and 10 ºC, sealed in poly ethylene bags of 3 types: (with 0 pores ,32 pores and 64 pores )

The results indicated that storage tomatoes fruit of 3 stages of maturity at 0 ºC resulted in its being affected by chilling injury and lost its marketable life. The mature green fruit were more sensitive to 0 ºC compared to other 2 stages of maturity, but storing tomato fruits under 5 ºC resulted in loss of the fruits of two maturity stages (the mature green and breaker) ,under this temperature, the red-ripe fruit was not affected by chilling injury and did not loss the marketable life .fruit of all stages of maturity retained its marketable life  when stored at 10 ºC. 

Fruit color was correlated with storage temperature, and storing the fruits in polyethylene bags has no effect on fruit color. Fruit water content was found to be increased when stored in polyethylene bags

From the results also, it can be seen that all evaluated fruit reached natural maturity in 13 days in storage, and the TSS increased but there was a decrease in acidity, which is a good indicator for tomato fruit maturity. Vitamin C decreased because of its use in fruit respiration during storage