Effect of Storage Conditions on Physiological Characteristics and Shelf Life of Tomato Fruits (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill)

The physical characteristics treatments indicated a significant delay in weight loss, changes in tomato fruits kept under cold storage recorded a higher organoleptic scoring, but, symptoms of chilling injury were observed at end of storage period. Cold storage of High density polyethylene packed fruits significantly delayed the colour development and maintained a better Texture (2.7 and 2.5/4), Colour (2.0 and 2.0/4) content in both ambient and cold storage. The significant impact of treatment was found on the least decay percentage (31.2 and 30.3%) in the fruits treated with CaCl₂ 2 per cent packed in High density polyethylene films was significantly less. However, no significant differences were observed among the storage conditions cold storage maintained significantly higher quality of fruits over ambient storage but, chilling injury symptoms were observed at the end of storage period. However, HDPE packed fruits kept under cold storage significantly reduced the chilling injury symptoms and the fruits had better quality as compared to other treatments combination.