Temperature dynamics of fresh tomato quality indicators during storage

The big retail chains incur lot of losses of the fresh fruit and vegetable products, the considerable part of which formed by fresh imported tomatoes. This article presents the results of an experiment conducted at Federal State Budgetary Scientific Institution North Caucasian Regional Research Institute of Horticulture and Viticulture of city Krasnodar for the investigation of influence of temperature conditions on tomatoes quality of the “Torbash" sort during storage. As a biochemical parameters of the quality assessment were investigated acidity, dissolved dry matter content, ascorbic acid and sugars content. Correlation analysis of the data with a changing parameter “temperature" has revealed dependence of the vitamin C content on glucose and the total content of sugars 240 hours after storage. Analysis of data on vitamin C and glucose at a fixed factor “storage time" has showed a high correlation of these parameters at a temperature of 18°С, at 22°С the correlation is moderate. Moderate correlation of the vitamin С content with the sum of the sugars is observed at temperature of plus 16°С; at 4 and 18°C there is a weak correlation. But correlation analysis for sugars and acidity showed no correlation at temperatures other than normal (7...8°С). The ratios of vitamin С and glucose or vitamin С and the amount of sugars can serve as indicators in estimation fruit quality, and the weak of correlation between sugars and acidity at temperatures other than 8°С indicates storage of the product with temperature disturbances