STUDIES ON SHELF LIFE EXTENSION OF POMEGRANATE (Punica granatum L.)
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Date
15-07-09
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University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore
Abstract
Pomegranate (Punica granatum L.) is the fruit crop which belongs
to a family Punicaceae which includes only one genus and two species,
the other one little-known, being P. protopunica peculiar to the island of
Socotra. It is one of the most favourite table fruits and also one of the
hardiest fruit plants that thrives well under arid and semi arid climatic
conditions. Transpiration losses in pomegranate limit their storage life
and marketability. The shelf life of pomegranate is ten days only in
ambient storage. This study was geared towards assessing the suitability
of the Modified Atmosphere (MA) storage to extend the shelf-life of
pomegranate fruit.
The respiratory behaviour of pomegranate was studied in sealed
glass chambers (replicated thrice) stored at two temperatures-ambient
(25-27O C) and 10O C. The peak respiration rate of pomegranate was
found as 44.6 mgCO2kg-1h-1 and 15.03 mgCO2kg-1h-1 at ambient and 10O
C, respectively. Fruits were packed in three types of packages-200 gauge
HDPE, 300 gauge HDPE with different ventilations and silicone
membrane system with different window areas in airtight PET jars and
stored at two temperatures (ambient and 10O C) to find different
packages and storage systems for enhancing shelf-life. Gas composition,
PLW and microbial growth inside the storage environments (packages)
were determined and the quality parameters were estimated immediately
after removing from MAP.
With the passive gas modification, pomegranate was stored in
ambient storage for 10 days whereas in modified atmosphere packaging
(200 gauge HDPE, 300 gauge HDPE and silicone membrane system), the
shelf-life of pomegranate fruits was extended up to 60, 60, 25 days at
ambient and 96, 96, 65 days at 10O C temperature respectively.
With regard to the entire sensory and quality parameters, HDPE
package was found to be better than silicon membrane system.