Effect of Post-Harvest Treatments on Quality Characteristics of Carrots During Storage

Authors

  • Benish Nawaz Mirani Institute of Food Sciences and Technology, Sindh Agriculture University, Tandojam, 70060, Pakistan
  • Shakeel Hussain Chattha Department of Farm Structures, Sindh Agriculture University, Tandojam, 70060, Pakistan.
  • Shakeel Ahmed Soomro Department of Farm Structures, Sindh Agriculture University, Tandojam, 70060, Pakistan.
  • Bakhtawar Wagan Department of Farm Structures, Sindh Agriculture University, Tandojam, 70060, Pakistan.
  • Imtiaz Ali Dahri Khairpur College of Agricultural Engineering and Technology, Khairpur, Pakistan
  • Zaheer Ahmed Khan Department of Farm Structures, Sindh Agriculture University, Tandojam, 70060, Pakistan.
  • Ghassan Zahid Department of Biotechnology, The University of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Muzaffarabad, 13100, Pakistan.
  • Babar Mustafa Ansari Khairpur College of Agricultural Engineering and Technology, Khairpur, Pakistan

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.37962/jbas.v13i2.543

Keywords:

Post-harvest treatment, carrot, quality, storage

Abstract

Background: Carrot due to its versatility in culinary uses is considered to be one of the most preferred vegetable. The carrot in Pakistan ranks third among winter vegetables, but due to adoption of improper postharvest techniques and storage, it leads to a great reduction in its quality.

Objective: The study was carried out to assess the effect of different treatments on quality characteristics of carrot.

Methodology: The study was carried out at the Laboratory of Farm Structures, Sindh Agriculture University Tandojam, Pakistan. Freshly harvested mature carrots free from damage and fungal attack were obtained from field. The carrot samples were subjected to different post-harvest treatments i.e. 40 ºC hot water dip for 2 minutes, 50 ºC hot water dip for 2 minutes, 0.4% concentration of calcium chloride (CaCl2) dip for 2 minutes and tap water.

Results: The results revealed that moisture content and firmness decreased with increasing storage duration, whereas weight loss, fungal incidence and total soluble solids increased with increasing storage duration. The carrots treated with 0.4% concentration of CaCl2 dip for 2 minutes had maximum moisture content (78.32%) and firmness (4.12 lbs), with minimum weight loss (41.33%), fungal incidence (38.14%) and total soluble solids (10.43%), followed by 40 ºC hot water dip for 2 minutes, 50 ºC hot water dip for 2 minutes and tap water.

Conclusion: The carrots treated with 0.4% concentration of CaCl2 dip for 2 minutes showed better quality characteristics at the end of storage. The adoption of this treatment should therefore be encouraged in the developing countries for extending the quality characteristics of carrots.

Downloads

Published

2022-12-31

Issue

Vol. 13 No. 2 (2022): Vol 13 No 2 (2022): Volume 13 (2), December 2022

Section

Articles

License

Copyright (c) 2023 RADS Journal of Biological Research & Applied Sciences

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Creative Commons License
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.