Ionizing irradiation in postharvest in the atemoia cultivar ‘Thompson’

Abstract

The study of ionizing irradiation with Cobalt 60 (60Co), in this experiment, aimed to evaluate its influence on the increase of shelf life for atemoia cv. ‘Thompson’. Atemias were irradiated with the following doses of cobalt 60 (60Co): T0 = No irradiation (control), T1 = 0.2kGy, T2 = 0.4kGy, T3 = 0.6kGy, T4 = 0.8kGy, T5 = 1 , 0kGy and T6 = 1,2kGy and subsequently packed in expanded polystyrene trays (2 fruits / tray) and sealed with 0.020mm polyvinyl chloride films; exception made to the control treatment which did not receive irradiation treatment; for each treatment there were three repetitions with two fruits per repetition. The fruits that received the treatments were stored in a cold chamber at 15 ± 0.2ºC and 90 ± 2% RH. In all treatments, the analyzes of: loss of fresh mass, soluble solids (SS), titratable acidity (AT), pH, ascorbic acid (AA), reducing sugars, respiratory rate were performed. The analyzes of all treatments were analyzed every three days (0,3,6,9,12,15 and 18) days of storage. The irradiation was carried out at the Radiation Technology Center - CTR IPEN / CNEN - SP, located in the university city USP (University of São Paulo) in the compact multi-purpose radiator where the Gamma Ray is used. The experiment was conducted in a completely randomized design (D.I.C.), in a factorial scheme (treatment x storage), composed of the treatments and seven storage times. The results were subjected to analysis of variance and the means compared by the Tukey test at the level of 5% probability and regression was performed for the analyzes in the storage period. This experiment can conclude that the doses of 1.0kGy and 1.2kGy demonstrate greater control of breathing, in atemoia, until the 9th day; three days more than the control treatment, the other items analyzed did not show any interference in the increase in postharvest life of the atemous cv ‘Thompson’.