Encontro de Energia no Meio Rural
AGRENER

Resumen

CASTRO, Larissa Rodrigues de y CORTEZ, Luís Augusto Barbosa. Aplicação da refrigeração na conservação pós-colheita do tomate. In Anales del 3. Encontro de Energia no Meio Rural, 2000, Campinas (SP, Brasil) [online]. 2003 [citado 28 Abril 2024]. Disponible en: <http://www.proceedings.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=MSC0000000022000000100011&lng=es&nrm=iso> .

Despite the increase in the consumption of fruit and vegetables with the begining of the Plan "Real" in Brazil, the losses in postharvest range between 30 to 40% of production. Therefore, a significant amount of the energy used in tomato production, from soil preparation, seeding, to fertilizer use, irrigation, and harvest, is wasted. In order to promote energy saving and increase producer revenue by improving the product conservation, it is essential to use the refrigeration technology. The objective of this paper was to analise the influence of refrigeration, associated with cartoom packages and classification criterious, as a mean of improving conservation of harvest tomato for Brazilian conditions For this purpose, studies were conducted to evaluate color, firmness, appearance, flavor and weight loss changes in two varieties of tomatoes (Santa Clara and Carmen) with and without classification, held in 4 types of cartoom boxes and stored at ambient temperature (24^oC) and under refrigeration at 7° C and 13° C. The data showed that the higher the storage temperature the higher the weight loss for both varieties. The tomatoes stored at 13^oC during 22 days had equivalent values of coloration, firmness and flavor than those fruits held at ambient temperature for only 9 days. This proved the use of refrigeration significantly extends the tomato shelf live (except for 7° C that caused chilling injury).

Palabras llave : Tomate; refrigeração; embalagem; classificação.