Effects of temperature and storage duration on keeping quality of Malaysian grown passion fruit (Passiflora edulis Sims f. flavicarpa Deg.)

Passion fruit exhibits climacteric pattern of ethylene production and respiration rate makes the fruit to have short post-harvest life.
Storing the fruit in lower temperature can lower the respiration rate.
However, the effect of low-temperature storage is variable since fruit quality is greatly dependent on the storage temperature.
Therefore, this study was conducted to determine optimum storage temperature for yellow passion fruit.
The fruit was stored for 21 days with 7 days intervals at five different temperatures; 5, 10, 15, 20 and 25°C. A total of 40 fruits were subjected to each temperature regime and repeated three times applying a randomized complete block design with factorial arrangement (5 storage temperatures × 4 storage times). The result showed that the respiration, ethylene production rate, weight loss and sugar:acid ratio were affected significantly (p<0.05) by interaction between temperature and storage.
However, there were no significant differences (p>0.05) in pulp percentage, titratable acidity, soluble solids concentration, pH and ascorbic acid.
Keeping the fruit at 5 and 10°C was effective in lowering the respiration rate and ethylene production.
Nonetheless, the fruit stored at 5°C undergone higher percentage weight loss resulting in unpleasant visual quality manifested in shrivelling and shrinkage.
Moreover, at this temperature, the fruit also developed chilling injury symptoms.
This study indicates that the optimum storage temperature for Malaysian grown passion fruit is 10°C as the fruit could still retain its quality with minimal water loss for 21 days.

IV International Symposium on Horticulture in Europe – SHE2021

M.N. Shahidah, N.F.M.H. Siti, P. Ding

weight loss, respiration rate, soluble solids concentration, visual quality and ascorbic acid

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2021.1327.73