POSTHARVEST QUALITY OF CARISSA CARANDAS: A PRELIMINARY STUDY

Carissa carandas is an underutilised crop in Malaysia.
It belongs to the Apocyanaceae family.
It is a sprawling semi-vine shrub native to Malaysia, India, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Thailand.
The fruits are in clusters with a range of colours from white, white-pinkish, pinkish-red, purplish-red and dark-purplish, resembling purple grapes.
Ten fruits of Carissa were sampled randomly at each ripening stage according to pink or purple colour formation.
The ripening stages were 55% pink, 70% pink, 95% pink, pinkish-purple, reddish-purple and reddish-purple with wrinkle.
The physio-chemical quality characteristics of these stages were determined.
The lightness of Carissa peel decreased while the hue values showed colour changed from red to purple as ripening progressed.
The lightness of pulp also decreased and colour changed from orange to red as ripening progressed.
The firmness decreased while the soluble solids concentration increased as ripening stage progressed.
The titratable acidity of fruit decreased while pH increased as ripening occurred.
The vitamin C of Carissa increased as fruit ripened.
The respiration rate of Carissa increased then decreased as senescence occurred in over-ripe fruit (red-purplish with wrinkle). Ethylene was not detected in this study.
This study has served to rationalise some postharvest quality characteristics of Carissa. Further work is required to establish maturity stage and postharvest handling of this fruit.

II International Symposium on Underutilized Plant Species: Crops for the Future – Beyond Food Security

P. Ding, S. Syazwani

colour, firmness, soluble solids concentration, titratable acidity, pH, respiration

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2013.979.69