Qualidade e conservação pós-colheita de cebolinha submetida ao hidroresfriamento

Abstract

Vegetables, such as chives, which is considered a very perishable leafy vegetable, due to their high amount of water, are subject to intense post-harvest water loss, and it is necessary to use techniques that promote the reduction of water loss from products in order to extend the post harvest shelf life of vegetables. One of the low-cost post-harvest techniques with good efficacy in the preservation of fruits and vegetables is hydrocooling, which consists of cooling the plant material with ice water, in order to reduce the transpiration rate and extend the post-harvest shelf life of the vegetables. However, the temperature and duration of hydrocooling for chives is not yet well determined. Thus, the objective of this study was to evaluate the quality and postharvest conservation of chives under hydrocooling effect. All experimental units were submitted to sanitization by immersing the material in distilled water at room temperature with sanitizer - sodium hypochlorite (3 ml/L). Treatment 1, control, was submitted only to sanitization. The other treatments were submitted to hydrocooling at 5ºC for 4, 6, 8 and 12 minutes, constituting treatments 2, 3, 4 and 5, respectively. After sanitization and hydrocooling, the chive bunches were preserved until the end of their shelf life under storage at 15°C in a B.O.D. incubator. For visual analysis and shelf life, the parameters of color, darkening, odor and general quality were evaluated by four trained evaluators. After eight days of storage, hydrocooling for 4 minutes showed a reduction in leaf mass when compared to the other treatments, which showed similar mass losses throughout the experiment. The technique of hydrocooling for twelve minutes and with material stored at 15° C proved to be efficient for a better postharvest conservation of the material.