CONSERVATION OF TOMATO, SWEET PEPPER AND AUBERGINES QUALITY UNDER MECHANIZED HARVESTING, STORAGE AND SALE

To increase marketability of combine harvested produce and to decrease tomato fruits losses, it is necessary to harvest fruits under 60–70 % of maturity.
The fruits maturity is the reason of the number increasing of cracked, squashed and rotten fruits in gathared heap.
Tomato fruits harvested by combine SKT-2 are available to be stored under natural conditions of storehouses for 2–3 weeks before sale or transported to 1500 km with relatively small losses.
Combine harvested sweet pepper fruits are of high marketable quality and further sorting is not necessary.
They are suitable for transporting with subsequent storage under natural conditions of storehouses or in refrigerators.

Aubergines hybrids with the strength of fruit fastening to plant less then 4 kg are the most favourable for selection of varieties suitable for combine harvesting.

The increasing of tomato, sweet pepper and aubergines production in the USSR in future is connected with the possibilities to mechanize their growing and harvesting in particular.
The main part of mechanized technology is machine harvesting.

For the last ten years the growth of output production of tomato, sweet pepper and aubergines took place at the expence of intensification of production and its concentration in big specialized farms.
The tendency was determined by technological process in area, where the new technology for growing and harvesting of tomato by combine SKT-2 was applied.

But increasing of mechanically bruised and non-standard fruits, resulting in harvesting of them by combine, caused the necessity to elaborate the methods of quality conservation of combine harvested tomato, sweet pepper and aubergines.

For 1976–1978 the author’s have studied the influence of mechanization of harvesting on the quality of tomato, sweet pepper and aubergines fruits under storage for sale and canning purposes.

To obtain the products of high quality under combine harvesting of these vegetables it is necessary to grow plants which are characterized by the higher value of effort of breakage of their stems, then the effort of tearing of fruits from plants, since the process of fruit

Symposium on Quality of Vegetables

A.E. Serdyukov, V.G. Emelin

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.1979.93.14