Effect of hydrocooling and storage duration on postharvest quality of Saba Banana

• Main Author: Teo, Wei Ting
• Format: Academic Exercise
• Language: English
• Published: Universiti Malaysia Sabah 2017
• Subjects: S Agriculture (General)
• Online Access: https://eprints.ums.edu.my/id/eprint/24490/1/Effect%20of%20hydrocooling%20and%20storage%20duration%20on%20postharvest%20quality%20of%20Saba%20Banana.pdf; https://eprints.ums.edu.my/id/eprint/24490/

A study was conducted at Faculty of Sustainable Agriculture, University Malaysia Sabah, Sandakan to determine the effect of different hydrocooling time and storage duration on postharvest quality of Saba banana. Fully matured unripe Saba bananas were precooled at 1/8, 1/4, 1/2 and O cooling time using a portable hydrocooler and stored at 13±2°C for O, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 weeks. The experimental design was CRD with a factorial arrangement of treatments ( 4 cooling times x 6 storage duration) with three replications and three fingers of fruits for each replication. The data was analysed using SAS statistical computer package Version 9.4 and two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was carried out to determine significant effect between two factors. Duncan's multiple range tests (DMRT) was performed for mean comparison. The results indicated that interaction between cooling time and storage duration has significant effect on the visual appearance, peel colour, firmness, weight loss, pH, and total soluble solid but it does not affect the titratable acidity. Storage duration for fruits to have acceptable visual appearance was up to 3.2 weeks for control treatment (non-hydrocooled) compared to only 0.7 weeks, 1.3 weeks and 2.4 weeks for 1/2, 1/4, and 1/8 cooling time respectively. Hydrocooled Saba bananas also shown a high weight loss and poor performance on peel colour across storage duration. Only firmness, pH, titratable acidity and total soluble solid seemed to gain the benefits from hydrocooling over storage duration but these might be related to chilling injury. The results of this study did not suggested hydrocooling Saba banana using 1/2, 1/4, and 1/8 cooling time at cooling medium of 2±1°C as it caused chilling injuries which negatively affect most of the physical quality of fruits.