Performance of Low Cost Postharvest Handling Technologies on Quality of Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) Fruits

Abstract

Low cost technologies including CoolBot Cold-rooms (CB-CR) and Zero Energy Cooling Chamber (ZECC) have been made available to value-chain actors in least developing countries. However, little is known about their performance and cost effectiveness to enhance their utilization. This study was conducted to establish comparative performance and cost effectiveness of CoolBot Cold-rooms (CB-CR), Zero Energy Cooling Chamber (ZECC) and Ambient Storage conditions on storability and quality retention of fruits of tomato variety “Assila F1”. A 4x3 factorial experiment in Completely Randomized Design (CRD) with two factors; maturity stage (mature-green, breaker and light red) and storage conditions (CB-CR at 13±1°C, CB-CR at 16±1°C, ZECC, and ambient) were used. Following 12 days storage of 6 crates (28.5kg each) per treatment combination, results indicated a significant interaction between maturity stage and storage condition in terms of fruit external colour change (L*C*h*) and marketable fruits (%) but not on soluble solid content (%Brix), titratable acidity (MeqL-1), weight loss (%) and firmness-compression (kg/mm2). Color change was delayed on mature green (MG) compared to other harvesting stages but much slower on MG fruits stored in CB-CR (13±1°C and 16±1°C) from yellow yellow-green (L*C*h*=57, 31.7, 110) to yellow yellow-red (L*h*C*= 42.9, 43, 50). Percentage marketable fruits were higher on MG harvested fruits stored at 13°C (98.9%) and 16 °C (97.8%) than ZECC (71%) and Ambient (57%). Storage at CB-CR at 13±1°C and CB-CR at 16±1°C were found economically viable with benefit to cost ratio (B:C) of 1.7 and 2.2, respectively. During the season the B:C ratio of storing mature green harvested tomato fruits in ZECC (0.61) was poor but relatively better than that of storage at ambient (0.44) condition. The study therefore recommends adoption of CB-CR technology to ensure better and economical storability of tomato during peak harvesting seasons when demand is low.