PP film is effective in keeping the quality of 'Roxo de Valinhos' fig stored under active and passive modified atmosphere at room temperature
Franciane Colares Souza and Antonio Carlos de Oliveira Ferraz
Abstracts, 10th International Controlled & Modified Atmosphere Research Conference, 4-7 April 2009, Antalya, Turkey. 80 pages.
2009
บทคัดย่อ
The production of fig (Ficus carica L.) is of great economical and social importance for Valinhos area, in the state of Sao Paulo, Brazil, and responsible for 90% of the national fresh figs production and the only export area in the country. ‘Roxo de Valinhos’ fig is highly perishable, with shelf life of 1 to 3 days at room conditions, and therefore the commercialization period is very short. Since conservation techniques are not usually applied in figs, the solution found by the producers for the product to arrive in acceptable condition in Europe was the anticipation of harvest, picking them in the green stage, earlier than used for the internal market fig, with harmful consequences to its flavor and appearance. In this work, ‘Roxo de Valinhos’ fig harvest at half mature ripening stage was exposed at passive and active modified atmosphere. The treatments used were: (1) control, (2) passive modified atmosphere (PMA) and (3) active modified atmosphere, with 20% of CO2 and 6.5% of O2 (AMA). For the treatments with modified atmosphere, figs were wrapped with 50µm polypropylene film (PP), and were stored during 7 days at temperature of 20±2°C and relative humidity of 85±5%. For treatments evaluation there were measured the concentrations of CO2, O2 and ethylene in the packages, weight loss, soluble solids contend, titritable acidity and appearance during storage. The PP film was efficient in keeping high CO2 levels in the packages for the modified atmosphere treatments, reaching at the final of storage 21.29% and 36.16% of CO2 and 4.14% and 1.78% of O2 for PMA and AMA, respectively. Treatments with modified atmosphere were efficient in maintaining fig quality, specially in keeping the appearance and showing the smallest weigh loss, 1.72% and 2.52% for the treatments PMA and AMA, respectively, and 40.02% for control. Nevertheless, the modified atmosphere treatments did not avoid decay in the conditions of temperature and relative humidity used.