article · Australian Journal of Crop Science
Tomatoes are highly perishable and prone to decay during marketing and storage. This research examined whether postharvest dipping treatments using hydrogen peroxide could maintain fruit quality and limit losses. Light red tomatoes of the Red rose cultivar were submerged for thirty minutes in solutions containing zero, five, or fifteen millimolar hydrogen peroxide, air-dried, and held at either ten or twenty degrees Celsius. Storing the fruit at ten degrees lasted four weeks, while storage at twenty degrees lasted three weeks. The hydrogen peroxide dips successfully lowered fruit weight loss and decreased the percentage of disease incidence compared to untreated control fruit. The treatment caused only a slight effect on fruit firmness, while total soluble solids and ascorbic acid content remained unaffected across treatments. Storage temperature also influenced overall quality over time.
Tomato crops suffer substantial postharvest losses caused by decay and weight loss throughout marketing and storage. Identifying simple, practical dipping treatments can help preserve fruit condition across different storage temperatures. Because the treatment curbs disease incidence without altering key quality traits such as ascorbic acid, it offers a way to retain tomato quality longer.
This applied and tested approach could benefit tomato producers, packhouses, and distributors seeking postharvest interventions to cut decay and weight loss. The abstract tests a simple thirty-minute dip with hydrogen peroxide at defined concentrations, representing applied laboratory research that requires scaling and operational assessment before commercial deployment across supply chains.
AI-generated from the published abstract. Always read the original work before citing.
Tomato is a perishable vegetable crop and it faces several problems during marketing and storage. Postharvest losses during storage of tomato fruits are mainly due to decay. In this study, the effect of postharvest application of hydrogen peroxide on quality and decay of tomato fruits during storage under two storage temperatures (10 ºC and 20 ºC) was studied. Tomato fruits (Red rose cv.) at light red maturity stage were dipped in a solution of hydrogen peroxide (0, 5 and 15 mM) for 30 min, then air-dried at room temperature and stored at room temperature (20ºC) for three weeks in fridge (10ºC) for 4 weeks. A factorial (3 x 2) complete randomized design with three replications was used. The results showed that Hydrogen peroxide treatments reduced weight loss and disease incidence percentage of fruits compared with control treatment (0 mM hydrogen peroxide). Moreover, hydrogen peroxide treatments had slight effect on fruit firmness. Regarding TSS% and ascorbic acid content, there were no significant differences among treatments. In addition, storage temperature affected tomato fruit quality during storage time. Therefore, the use of hydrogen peroxide in postharvest treatments is useful to keep quality of tomato fruits under storage conditions.
This page summarises published work. The authoritative version sits with the publisher.
DOI: 10.21475/ajcs.19.13.05.p1738
Is something wrong with this record? Report it or request removal.
Discussion
Have you built on this work, tried to replicate it, or seen it applied in practice? Share what you know. Verified researchers and MARATTO™ domain experts can open a discussion, and any member can reply. Contributions are reviewed before they appear.
No discussion yet. Open the first thread.
New to MARATTO™? Create a free account.
