Maintaining quality and extending the Post-Harvest Life of Tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.)

Abstract

Tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) is one of the most important vegetable crops grown and consumed extensively throughout the world. Owing to its wide consumption it has very high nutritive value. Tomato is a high water containing horticultural commodity and therefore is highly perishable in nature. It is prone to several losses during its harvesting, post harvest handling practices, transportation, storage and marketing. It is estimated that post harvest losses in tomatoes ranges from 25-42% globally. From various investigations it has been found that the quality of harvested tomatoes cannot be improved but only be maintained after harvest. Similarly, the post harvest storage life can be extended through proper post harvest handling practices and various treatments methods. It has also been discovered that the post harvest quality of tomatoes not only depends upon the post harvest handling operations like physical handling, pre cooling, cleaning and disinfecting, sorting and grading, packaging, transportation, storage temperature, storage humidity and combination of different gases but also on some pre harvest factors like cultivar type, fertilizer application, irrigation, pruning, maturity stage at harvest, methods and time of harvesting. Furthermore post harvest life can be enhanced through various post harvest treatment methods like heat treatment, refrigeration storage (cold storage), CA storage, MAP, CaCl₂ treatment,  use of ethylene inhibitors (1-MCP) ,growth regulators (GA and 2,4-D), and tomato wax treatment.