The Effect of Postharvest Treatments on the Quality of Early Urbana Y Variety Tomato

Some of the post-harvest agricultural crops due to the improper maintenance of products, as well as damages caused by the pests might lose their quality. Therefore, the use of chemical compounds to increase the shelf life of fruits and vegetables might be inevitable. The aim of this research is to evaluate the effect of ozone, acetic acid and menthol on the shelf life and keeping quality of early Urbana Y tomato after harvesting. Tomato (Early Urbana Y variety) were subjected to different treatments such as ozonated water (0.2 ppm), acetic acid (0 and 4% V/V), menthol (0, 250 and 500 ppm) and combination solutions. Necessary experiments concerned with weight wasted, brix, sugar content, acidity, ascorbic acid content and microbial tests were carried out on the samples and the control. After 15 days of preservation in the environmental temperature, experiments were repeated and the influence of the treatments on the samples were determined and compared to the control. The results indicated that the treatment caused the reducing sugar, waste and the microbial counts to be less than control after the keeping period, while the titratable acidity and ascorbic acid content in tomatoes were preserved better. Treatments affected the quality of tomatoes and the combined treatment; ozone, acetic acid and methanol at 500 ppm exhibited better effect.