The Effects Packaging Materials on Post Harvest Quality of Tomato (Solanum Lycopersium)

Abstract

This experiment was conducted during the year 2016 at Debre Markos University to evaluating the effect of packaging material on the post-harvest quality of tomato fruit.  through packaging treatments. Treatments consisted of Dried straw, Carton, High perforated plastic film, low perforated plastic film and wooden basket(control) and one storage conditions (ambient condition using completely randomized design with three replications. From a local cultivar tomato fruits were evaluated for their shelf life and quality attributes over a storage period of 9 days. packaging in all days significantly improved postharvest quality parameters of tomato fruits tested as a result of reduction of mean temperature by 2.01^oC and increase of relative humidity by 5.25 % in the ambient storage conditions. Packaging also reduced weight and maintained fruit quality characters. there was no significant difference among treatments on TSS and pH for all entries. The highest percentage of tomato color account around 26.7 % of red and light red whereas the lowest percentage were record 5 % for those green and turning color.  fruit firmness was exhibited from hard to soft ranges. almost 45 % of tomato tuber exhibited moderate firmness whereas only 5 % from the total tomato fruit exhibited extremely hard and hard texture. This study showed that importance of packaging for considerable number of traits studied and the possibility of selecting appropriate packaging material for tomato fruit for further testing for different post-harvest technologies objectives.

Keywords: Total soluble solid, pH and refractometer