Sensitivity of tomatoes to internal bruising induced by mechanical stress.

摘要

Tomato bruising is a major type of postharvest damage that substantially reduces fruit quality and marketability. Bruises show local tissue softening in parallel with textural changes. Among perishable commodities,tomatoes are considerably sensitive to mechanical damage. Impact power and fruit-related properties that affect tomato bruise susceptibility were investigated in this study. A bruise prediction model was constructed for the damage susceptibility of tomato (measured by absorbed energy) using multiple linear regression analyses. Tomatoes were subjected to dynamic loading by means of a pendulum at three levels of impact. Significant effects of acoustic stiffness, temperature, the radius of curvature and some interactions on bruising were obtained at 5% probability level. It was concluded that increases in temperature during impacts as well as high acoustic stiffness and low radius of curvature of fruit will reduce the absorbed energy and, thus alleviate bruise damage of tomatoes.