+44-7897-074717Muhammad Shahnawaz, Saghir Ahmed Sheikh, Aijaz Hussain Soomro, Aasia Akbar Panhwar and Shahzor Gul Khaskheli
Being a climacteric and perishable vegetable, tomatoes have a very short life span; therefore, the present study, was conducted to determine the effect of wrapping materials on weight loss, firmness, appearance/ colour, titratable acidity, TSS and vitamin C contents during storage at ambient temperature (32±2°C). Freshly harvested mature green tomatoes were packed in polyethylene bags, newspapers and grease free papers and control (without wrapping). The fruits were then evaluated for changes in quality parameters within the different stages of ripening. The results showed that within wrapping materials, the treated fruits remained better than that of control and all the treatments are significantly different (P < 0.05) from each other. It was also observed that treated fruits showed lower weight loss, firmness and titratable acidity while, total soluble solids (TSS), vitamin C content and colour were higher in treated fruits when compared with control at the red ripe stage. It was concluded that tomatoes wrapped in polyethylene bags were better in quality with longer shelf life i.e. 28 days than other wrapping materials and control at ambient temperature.
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