Shelf life and quality of tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) fruits as affected by neem leaf extract dipping and beeswax coating

oleh: Biruk Zewdie, Tigist Tadesse Shonte, Kebede Woldetsadik

Format: Article
Diterbitkan: Taylor & Francis Group 2022-12-01

Deskripsi

The effect of Beeswax (BW) coating and Neem leaf extract (NLE) dipping on the shelf life of tomatoes (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) was investigated over a storage period of 36 days. The experiment was done by a factorial combination of four levels of NLE dipping (0, 15%, 20% and 25%) and BW coating (0, 3%, 6% and 9%) in randomized complete block design with three replications. It was observed that BW9*NLE25 significantly (P < .001) extended the shelf life of tomato fruits by eight days and effectively reduced weight loss by 55–68%, the changes in TA by 20–66.7%, PH by 6.3–14.1%, and TSS by 2.8–6.9%. Toward the end of the storage period (on the 28th day), BW9*NLE25 found to have 39.4% higher marketable fruits while reducing the percent decay by 96.1% compared to untreated tomato fruits. The study result showed that BW9*NLE25 could potentially be utilized to extend the shelf life and maintain the quality of tomato fruits by farmers, retailers, and wholesalers.