1Department of Food and Agricultural Process Engineering, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore-641 003, India
2Department of Crop Physiology, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Aggregatum at Coimbatore-641 003, India
*email: gomsfoodlife@gmail.com
Online published on 23 December, 2016.
The effect of temperature on the respiration rate of Allium cepa L. var. aggregatum onion bulb at ambient condition and at 40° C was studied. The O2 consumption and CO2 productionrate of aggregatum onion was monitored continuously at an interval of 3 h using a gas analyser. It was found that the rate of O2 consumption and CO2 production increased with increase in temperature. Under ambient condition the CO2 production rate reached a maximum of20.46ml/kg.h and the O2 consumptionrate attained a minimum of 0.07 ml/kg.h after 39 h. Whereas, at a temperature of 40° C, the CO2 production rate reached a maximum of 43.60 ml/kg.h and the O2 consumption rate attained a minimum of 0.27 ml/kg.h within 18 h. The rate at which O2 was consumed and CO2 was producedwas found to increase statistically (p<0.01) with time. The rate of respiration of aggregatum onion under ambient and at 40° C followed the exponential model with R2 ranging from 0.85 to 0.96.
Aggregatum onion, O2 consumption rate, CO2 production rate, Exponential model
