The effect of forced air pre-cooling on dill shelf life
2023
Ravaghi, مریم | Azizi, Azarakhsh | Behbahani, Leila
Proper management of post-harvest systems is one of the most crucial steps in reducing agricultural losses and waste. This study was aimed to find the effect of forced air pre-cooling of dill using a window air conditioner on its shelf life. For this purpose, a metal frame with dimensions of 2×1×1 m was covered with a polyethylene foam sheet and a window air conditioner (after removing its thermostat) equipped with a controller was connected to one end of this chamber. In the next step, bunches of dill without packaging and the cardboard packaging with polyethylene liner were placed in three different conditions, including without pre-cooling and keeping at ambient temperature, with pre-cooling and keeping at ambient temperature, with pre-cooling and keeping under refrigeration. The results showed that during 4 days of storage, bunches of dill kept at ambient temperature had more total loss (50-60%) but after that, packaging caused severe loss (100%) due to moisture accumulation. If cold storage and packaging was ignored after pre-cooling, total loss would increase swiftly. For this reason pre-cooled dill with proper packaging and refrigeration showed the least amount of total loss (8.95±1.03%), physiological water loss (5.16±1.78%), pH (6.16±0.16), a*(-20.29±1.45) and the highest amount of moisture content (87.60±3.76), hardness (764±50 N), ascorbic acid (2.74±0.05 mg. g-1 of dill dry weight basis), total acceptance (4.1±0.65), L* (43.44±6.39), and b* (20.09±4.31).
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