Effect of hydrothermal treatment and different coatings on post-harvest conservation of ‘Tommy Atkins’ mangoes

Abstract

The effect of hydrothermal treatment and modified atmosphere in post-harvest conservation of’ ‘Tommy Atkins’ mangos was studied. The modified atmosphere was obtained through the use of plastic packaging and biofilm of edible cassava starch e wax of carnauba 50%. The fruits were subjected to the hydrothermal treatment at 46.1°C for 75 minutes and soon afterwards, parts of these fruits were immersed in a solution with 2% of cassava starch and carnauba wax at 50%, and later, dried under forced ventilation, to remove the excess of the solution. After the treatment, the fruits were conditioned in export cartoon boxes, covered with plastic films. The boxes containing the fruits were stored under cooling by 21 days, plus six days at room  temperature, when the fruits were daily evaluated for: mass loss, pulp firmness, soluble solid contents, titratable acidity and pH. A completely randomized design, with four replications in a factorial scheme 9 x 6 (treatments x storage period), was used, and the data were interpreted by variance analysis, applying 5% regression for mass loss of fruits and Tukey test at 5% for the other variables. The use of modified atmospheres association and the hydrothermical treatment reduced in a (P < 0.05) significant way to the mass loss of the fruits.