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R E S E A R C H Open Access
Post-harvest assessment of fruit quality and
shelf life of two elite tomato varieties
cultivated in Bangladesh
Shata Rupa Sinha
1
, Ashutus Singha
2*
, Muhiuddin Faruquee
3
, Md. Abu Sayem Jiku
2
, Md. Arifur Rahaman
2
,
Md. Ashraful Alam
4
and Mohammad Abdul Kader
5
Abstract
Background: Tomatoes are now one of the most popular nutrient-dense vegetables in terms of acreage,
production, yield, commercial use, and consumption that add to the Bangladesh economy and ultimately reduce
poverty. With this view, a lab investigation was carried out to analyze the effects of tomato (Sofol and Roma VF)
verities on different post-harvest managements to extend shelf life as well as reduce post-harvest losses.
Results: This study confirmed that the fruit quality attributes (color, firmness, weight loss, chilling injury, total
soluble solids, pH, disease incidence, disease severity, and dry matter content) were increased whereas moisture
content, vitamin C, and titratable acidity decreased with the increases in storage duration. The high quality
attributes such as color, firmness, weight loss, chilling injury, total soluble solids, pH, disease incidence, disease
severity, and dry matter content increased, whereas moisture content, vitamin C and titratable acidity decrease of
tomato were observed in Roma VF while Sofol variety had high weight loss, moisture content, titratable acidity, and
vitamin C. Moreover, the highest shelf life (17 days) was recorded in Sofol than Roma VF (15 days). On the 16th day
of storage, maximum disease severity (41%) and disease incidence (71%) were observed at an earthen cooling pot,
whereas a significant reduction in disease severity (1%) and disease incidence (8%) were recorded in tomatoes
stored at 10
o
C temperature. Weight loss was the lowest (4%) in Sofol when kept at unperforated low-density
polyethylene (LDPL) plastic bag as compared to Roma VF treatment (11%). Considering the physiological process,
held at the low temperature (10
°
C and 15
°
C) and increased shelf life as well as reduced the diseases of tomatoes.
Conclusions: The investigator concluded that the findings of this study will be helpful with specific regard to long
and medium-term storage, quality control, transportation, and advertising, and will also be beneficial to tomato
growers of Bangladesh.
Keywords: Post-harvest, Physiological processes, Diseases, Tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum L.)
Introduction
One of the most important vegetables in terms of acre-
age, production, yield, commercial use, and consumption
is the tomato (Solanum Lycopersicun). After potato and
sweet potato, it is the most consumable vegetable crop
holding the top of the canned vegetable list (Chowdhury
1979). Currently, It is cultivated all over the country in-
cluding Bangladesh due to its adaptability to a wide
range of soil and climate (Ahmed 1976), Hassan et al.
2010; Kalloo and Sachdev 1985). According to BBS
(2012), the annual production of tomato is about 255
thousand metric tons from 23.82 thousand hectares of
land with an average yield of 10.71 metric tons/ha. How-
ever, tomato is highly perishable because of its climac-
teric pattern of respiration (Wills et al. 2004). The fruits
perishability is attributed to the increases in physio-
logical and physico-chemical changes, such as loss of
weight, respiration, transpiration, softening of pulp,
sugar, and acid contents (Firmin 1997). In the peak har-
vesting period of tomato in Bangladesh, sub-standard
© The Author(s). 2019 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and
reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to
the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
* Correspondence: ashutus.iwm@sau.ac.bd
2
Institute of Environmental and Sustainable development in Agriculture,
Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science, Beijing 100081, China
Full list of author information is available at the end of the article
Bulletin of the National
Research Centr
e
Sinha et al. Bulletin of the National Research Centre (2019) 43:185
https://doi.org/10.1186/s42269-019-0232-5
post-harvest operations such as lack of proper storage,
inadequate transportation and marketing, and insuffi-
cient processing and preservation facilities resulted in a
glut in the market, and therefore, the growers fail to
avail expected return of produce. Consequently, large
volumes of harvested tomatoes are sold at throw-away
prices and improper microbial decay also greatly con-
tributes to the high post-harvest loss (Arah et al. 2015).
Maintenance of tomato’s quality during marketing is
one of the major problems when the fruit is stored at
ambient temperature. Pathogen attack is an important
problem in the spoilage of tomato in storage. Many
fungi and bacteria cause diseases in tomato fruits and re-
sult in enormous losses of quantity and quality of the
fruits (Patel and Patel 1991). So, it is very important to
reduce post-harvest losses of tomato along the supply
chain.
The estimated post-harvest loss of tomatoes in the
supply chain of Bangladesh is 30% (Hassan et al. 2010).
Earlier reports suggested that post-harvest losses of to-
matoes ranged from 20 to 30% (Coursey 1971) and 30 to
50% (Lashley 1984). Apart from the above, the quantita-
tive and qualitative (nutritional) losses also occur if suit-
able post-harvest treatments are not applied. Hence,
there is an urgent need to reduce the enormous post-
harvest loss of tomatoes. Therefore, the lab experiment
was undertaken with the following objectives: (i) to in-
vestigate the effects of varieties on the shelf life and
post-harvest quality attributes of tomatoes in Bangladesh
and (ii) to determine the effects of heat treatment, modi-
fied atmosphere packaging, and low storage tempera-
tures on shelf life, physico-chemical changes, and
microbial infection of tomatoes during storage.
Materials and methods
Experimental site and atmospheric conditions of storage
room
The experiment was carried out at the Department of
Horticulture, Bangladesh Agricultural University,
Mymensingh-2202, Bangladesh. The temperatures and
relative humidity (RH) ranges for the storage room and
earthern cooling pot were 28.2 °C to 31.1 °C and 27.2 °C
to 29.5 °C and the 51 to 76% and 57 to 79%, respectively
and by using Digital Thermo Hygrometer (THERMO,
TFA, Germany). Unperforated (12 cm × 9 cm) LDPE
plastic bags were used for this treatment. Twenty-one
fruits of each variety were individually kept in unperfor-
ated plastic bags and placed on laboratory table at ambi-
ent condition for observation.
Method of studying parameters
Moisture content
Ten grams of tomato pulp was weighed by Triple Beam
Balance and taken in a Petri dish from each treatment
out of each replication. The Petri dish was placed in an
electric oven at 70 °C for 72 h until the constant weight
attained. It was then cooled and weighed again. The
moisture content of tomato pulp was calculated using
the following formula:
Moisture content/weight losses were calculated using
the following formula:
Moisture Content ¼IW−FW
IW 100 ð1Þ
Where IW is the initial weight of fruits (g) and FW is
the final weight of fruits at every weight (g). Also, the
dry matter percent of the tomato pulp is estimated from
the data obtained during moisture estimation using the
following formula:
Percent dry matter ¼100 percent moisture contentðÞ
ð2Þ
Color and firmness, chilling injury, and disease incidence
changes of fruit
The changes in the color of tomato were determined
using a numerical rating scale of 1–7, where 1 = green, 2
= breaker, 3 = turning, 4 = pink, 5 = light red, 6 = red, 7
= ripe red (Wills et al. 2004). The firmness of tomato
fruit was determined by hand feel using a numerical rat-
ing scale of 1–6, where 1 = hard, 2 = sprung, 3 = be-
tween sprung and eating ripe, 4 = eating ripe, 5 =
overripe, and 6 = rotten. The chilling injury of the fruits
during storage was qualitatively determined based on
visual observation using a numerical rating scale of 1–4
(1 = no chilling injury, 2 = slight chilling injury, 3 =
moderate chilling injury, 4 = severe chilling injury). The
disease incidence was calculated (Zhang et al. 2014)as
follows:
Disease incidence %ðÞ¼
number of infected fruits=total number of fruits at every dateðÞ100
ð3Þ
Vitamin C content
The vitamin C content of the sample was calculated by
using the following formula (Ali et al. 2015)
Vitamin C content mg=100mgðÞ
¼Ts DV1
ðÞ=V2WðÞ100Þð4Þ
Where T= titre, D= dye factor, V
1
= volume made
up, V
2
= volume of extract, W= weight of sample. The
dye factor was calculated using this formula: dye factor
= (0.5/titre).
Sinha et al. Bulletin of the National Research Centre (2019) 43:185 Page 2 of 12
TSS and titratable acidity
Total soluble solids (TSS) content of tomato pulp was
estimated using Abbe’s refractometer. A drop of tomato
juice squeezed from the fruit pulp was placed on the
prism of the refractometer and TSS was recorded as
%Brix from a direct reading of the instrument.
Temperature corrections were made using the
temperature correction chart. Titratable acidity of to-
mato pulp was determined according to the method
mentioned by Ranganna (1979).
pH
pH 7 and pH 4 buffer tablet (BDH) chemicals Ltd. Poole,
England) was dissolved in water and made up to the
mark of 100 ml with distilled water. For the determin-
ation of pulp pH, 4 gm of fresh pulp was taken in a con-
ical flask containing 10 ml of distilled water. Then, the
pulp was crushed thoroughly in a mortar and pestle and
extract was filtered through two of cloths. The pH meter
(Hannan) was calibrated by using the buffer solutions of
pH 7 and pH 4 when correction for temperature was
also taken into consideration. On completion of calibra-
tion, the electrode was washed twice with distilled water,
rinsed with tomato juice, and dipped into the juice and
the pH was recorded.
Plant materials
In this study, the freshly harvested tomato named “Sofol”
and “Roma VF”varieties which were planted as winter
tomato. The tomato fruits were collected from the local
farmer of village Koltapara under Gouripur Upazila of
Mymensingh on 28 April 2015. Tomatoes were kept in
perforated low-density polyethylene (LDPE) bags (Fig. 1)
for observation. A brief description of tomato varieties is
given in Table 1.
Treatments and experimental design
The tomato variety V
1
=“Roma VF”and V
2
=“Sofol’”
and each variety of eight treatments were considered
and the experiment was constructed with the factorial
arrangement in a complete block design with three repli-
cations presented in Table 2.
Post-harvest data collection
To assess the effect of varieties and post-harvest treat-
ments on the quality and shelf life of tomatoes during
storage period, the fruits of the experiment had been
keenly observed and recorded at every 2 days on the
abovementioned parameters. In this present study, dif-
ferent characters such as physical (color, firmness, total
weight loss, moisture content and dry matter content,
and chilling injury), chemical (total soluble solids (TSS),
pH, titratable acidity (TA) and vitamin C content, mi-
crobial (disease incidence, disease severity, and post-
harvest disease-causing organisms) characters, and shelf
life of tomatoes was calculated as affected by different
storage treatments.
Isolation and identification of causal pathogens
For identification of causal pathogens, a clean slide was
selected and a drop of cotton blue was placed on the
slide. Specimen was collected by scraping with sterilized
scalpel, blade and was placed on the cotton blue. A
cover slip was placed on the specimen. The surrounding
area of cover slip was cleaned with soft cloth. Then the
prepared slides were observed under compound micro-
scope for identifying the pathogenic structures. After 24
h the prepared slides were made permanent by using
nail polish and taken to the plant disease clinic of the
Department of Plant Pathology, BAU to take photo-
graphic image of the organisms.
Fig. 1 Ambient condition observation. aStorage of tomato fruit in earthen cooling pot bat water bath for hot water treatment cwrapped with
LDPE bags
Sinha et al. Bulletin of the National Research Centre (2019) 43:185 Page 3 of 12
Shelf life
Shelf life of tomato fruits as influenced by different post-
harvest treatments was calculated by counting the days
required to ripe fully with retained optimum marketing
and eating qualities.
Statistical analysis
The collected data on various parameters were statisti-
cally analyzed using MSTAT Statistical Package. The
means for all the treatments were calculated and analysis
of variances (ANOVA) for all the parameters were per-
formed by Ftest. The significance of difference between
the pair of means was compared by least significant dif-
ference (LSD) test at the 1% and 5% levels of probability
(Gomez and Gomez 1984).
Results
Color, firmness, and total weight loss
Significant variation was found in respect of color
changes of two tomato varieties during storage periods.
Higher color score (5.91) was observed in Roma VF than
that of Sofol (5.23) at 16th day of storage shown in Fig. 2a.
The rates of changes in color were faster in treatment
combinations of Roma VF with Control, Roma VF with 15
°C temperature and Roma VF with Hot water, and the rate
was the slowest in the treatment combination Sofol with
unperforated LDPE plastic bags (Table 3).
Statistically highly significant variation was observed in
respect to the firmness of tomato between two varieties
during storage. The higher rate of firmness score (4.52)
was found in Roma VF and the lower in Sofol (4.20) at
the 16th day of storage presented in Fig. 2b. Post-harvest
treatments exerted a significant effect on the firmness of
tomatoes during storage and ripening. The maximum
change in firmness (5.20) was observed in Roma VF with
control treatment and minimum change in firmness
(2.91) in Sofol with unperforated LDPE packaging at the
16th day of storage (Table 4). However, the variation in
percent weight loss was highly significant due to the ef-
fects of variety at all the day of storage. Sofol lost more
weight than Roma VF at the 4th, 6th, 8th, 10th, 12th,
and 14th day, respectively; presented in Fig. 2c. The
findings indicated that Roma VF was superior to Sofol in
respect of reduced weight loss (Table 5).
Moisture and dry matter content
The variation was observed between the varieties in re-
spect to moisture content. The variety Sofol had higher
moisture content (89.43%) at the 12th day of storage
than Roma VF (87.3%). The combination effects of var-
iety and post-harvest treatments in respect of moisture
content was found statistically highly significant at all
days of storage. The highest moisture content (92.67%)
was observed in Sofol with unperforated LDPE bags and
the lowest was (84.62%) in Roma VF with control treat-
ment combination at 4th and 12th DAS respectively
(Table 6).
Chilling injury and total soluble solids
In the present study, the chilling injury was examined
under 10 and 15
°
C storage. The main effects of variety
were non-significant in the early part of 4 days storage
Table 1 Basic information about two tomato varieties in Bangladesh
Characters Roma VF Sofol
General Fruits are oblong or pear-shaped Fruit oblate, medium size
Medium firm with a uniform green shoulder Medium firm and uniform fruit size with excellent shelf life
Fruit weight 85 to 100 g Fruit weight 90–100 g
Others Tolerance to Verticillium wilt, Fusarium wilt race, and Alternaria. Good for long-distance transportation
Company Lal Teer Seed Company, Bangladesh Syngenta Company Limited, Bangladesh
Table 2 Different treatments following in experiment
Treatment Condition
T
1
Control (room temperature)
T
2
10
°
C (tomato stored at 10
°
C temperature)
T
3
15
°
C (tomato stored at 15
°
C temperature)
T
4
Hot water treatment (tomatoes treated with hot water at 55 ± 1
°
C for 4 min and kept in ambient condition)
T
5
Earthen cooling pot (tomatoes kept in an earthen cooling pot)
T
6
Plastic film (tomatoes wrapped with food-grade ultra-thin plastic film)
T
7
Unperforated LDPE bags (tomatoes sealed in unperforated LDPE bag)
T
8
Perforated LDPE bags (tomatoes sealed in perforated LDPE bag)
Sinha et al. Bulletin of the National Research Centre (2019) 43:185 Page 4 of 12
Fig. 2 Different effects of two tomato varieties under storage and ripening. aChanges of color, bfruits’firmness:firmness score (1 = hard, 2 =
sprung, 3 = between sprung and eating ripe, 4 = eating ripe, 5 = overripe, 6 = rotten), ctotal weight loss, d–evitamin C content and titratable
acidity. fChilling injury at 10
°
C and 15
°
C, injury level (1 = no chilling injury, 2 = low chilling injury, 3 = moderate chilling injury, 4 = severe
chilling injury)
Table 3 Combined effect of varieties and postharvest treatments on changes of color of tomato fruits during storage and ripening
Treatment
combination
Colour(a) at different days after storage
246810121416
V
1
T
1
2.91 4.16 4.75 4.91 5.33 5.83 6.08 6.58
V
1
T
2
2.16 3.66 3.75 3.83 4.17 4.91 5.16 5.25
V
1
T
3
2.58 4.16 4.66 4.75 5.33 5.58 6.08 6.33
V
1
T
4
2.33 4.08 4.58 4.75 5.16 5.50 5.92 6.33
V
1
T
5
2.17 3.75 4.25 4.67 4.83 5.33 5.75 6.16
V
1
T
6
2.17 3.75 4.08 4.50 4.75 5.00 5.67 6.16
V
1
T
7
2.08 3.33 3.66 3.75 4.00 4.08 4.16 4.33
V
1
T
8
2.25 4.08 4.50 4.75 5.08 5.41 5.83 6.17
V
2
T
1
2.43 3.67 3.92 4.00 4.25 4.42 5.58 5.67
V
2
T
2
1.99 2.50 3.00 3.60 3.91 4.00 4.25 4.50
V
2
T
3
2.30 3.27 3.80 4.00 4.20 4.40 5.50 5.63
V
2
T
4
2.24 3.00 3.69 3.91 4.20 4.37 4.97 5.60
V
2
T
5
2.08 2.75 3.27 3.72 4.10 4.27 4.79 5.54
V
2
T
6
2.00 2.66 3.21 3.67 4.08 4.17 4.25 5.33
V
2
T
7
1.58 2.42 2.75 2.90 3.50 3.83 3.91 4.00
V
2
T
8
2.19 2.93 3.42 3.80 4.18 4.37 4.84 5.60
LSD
0.05
0.158 0.263 0.129 0.139 0.210 0.229 0.197 0.182
LSD
0.01
0.212 0.354 0.173 0.187 0.283 0.309 0.265 0.245
Level of significance ** ** * ** ** ** ** **
a
Color score (1green, 2breaker, 3turning, 4pink, 5light red, 6red, 7red ripe)
*Significant at 5% level of probability
**Significant at 1% level of probability
Sinha et al. Bulletin of the National Research Centre (2019) 43:185 Page 5 of 12
and significant at the later part of 14 days storage. Sofol
showed slightly better results than Roma VF in this re-
gard. The combined effects of variety and different post-
harvest treatments on chilling injury levels of tomato
were significant in all cases except days 4 and 16. The
highest injury was observed in V
1
T
2
(Roma VF with 10
°
C temperature) combination (Table 7).
The varietal difference in terms of TSS showed
statistically significant at the 4th, 8th, and 12th day
of storage. The variety Roma VF had higher TSS
content than Sofol throughout the storage period
presented in Fig. 2f. The variety Roma VF showed
the highest (5.20%Brix) TSS content than Sofol
(4.35%Brix) at the 4th day of storage. The combined
effects showed highly significant result in terms of
the TSS (Table 8). The combined effects of variety
and different post-harvest treatments on chilling in-
jury levels of tomato were significant at all cases ex-
cept days 4 and 16. The highest injury was observed
in V
1
T
2
(Roma VF with 10
°
C temperature)
combination.
pH of fruit juice and titratable acidity
There was a significant increase of pH in both var-
ieties of fruits during storage; pH was increased from
4.33 to 4.44 in Roma VF while in Sofol it was 4.15 to
4.33 at 4th and 8th day of storage (Table 8). Titrat-
able acidity was decreased with the advancement of
the storage period. Acidity (%) was always wider in
variety Sofol (0.46, 0.45, and 0.43) than Roma VF
Table 4 Combined effect of varieties and postharvest treatments on firmness of tomato during storage and ripening
Treatment
combination
Firmness (b) of tomato at different days after storage
246810121416
V
1
T
1
2.33 3.33 3.58 3.81 4.00 4.50 4.83 5.20
V
1
T
2
2.10 2.67 2.87 3.33 3.58 3.83 4.00 4.33
V
1
T
3
2.20 2.73 2.92 3.67 3.83 3.92 4.33 4.50
V
1
T
4
2.30 3.25 3.33 3.78 3.98 4.18 4.73 4.90
V
1
T
5
2.25 3.15 3.30 3.76 3.85 4.12 4.41 4.70
V
1
T
6
2.28 3.18 3.31 3.77 3.89 4.15 4.53 4.74
V
1
T
7
1.92 2.25 2.33 2.50 3.08 3.17 3.50 3.67
V
1
T
8
2.08 2.67 2.83 3.00 3.33 3.42 4.00 4.08
V
2
T
1
2.33 2.48 3.16 3.80 3.97 4.13 4.47 5.00
V
2
T
2
1.67 2.08 2.42 2.92 3.17 3.25 3.53 3.62
V
2
T
3
1.87 2.25 2.50 3.08 3.50 3.58 4.08 4.47
V
2
T
4
2.10 2.41 3.08 3.75 3.91 4.10 4.40 4.80
V
2
T
5
1.92 2.27 2.75 3.47 3.70 4.00 4.33 4.58
V
2
T
6
2.00 2.37 2.97 3.53 3.89 4.07 4.38 4.67
V
2
T
7
1.58 2.08 2.17 2.25 2.42 2.67 2.83 2.91
V
2
T
8
1.67 2.08 2.33 2.75 2.83 3.25 3.50 3.58
LSD
0.05
0.118 0.204 0.158 0.197 0.257 0.197 0.263 0.246
LSD
0.01
0.158 0.274 0.212 0.265 0.347 0.265 0.354 0.332
Level of significance ** ** * ** ** ** NS **
Significant bfirmness score (1hard, 2sprung, 3between sprung and eating ripe, 4eating ripe, 5over ripe, 6rotten), NS not
*Significant at 5% level of probability
**Significant at 1% level of probability
Table 5 Effects of varieties on total weight loss of tomato during storage and ripening
Variety Total weight loss (%) of tomato at different days after storage
468101214
Roma VF 1.30 2.18 2.87 4.35 5.37 6.68
Sofol 1.83 2.58 3.36 4.92 6.23 7.60
LSD
0.05
0.080 0.111 0.187 0.206 0.236 0.312
LSD
0.01
0.107 0.148 0.249 0.275 0.315 0.416
Level of significance ** ** ** ** ** **
**1 % level of significance
Sinha et al. Bulletin of the National Research Centre (2019) 43:185 Page 6 of 12
(0.41, 0.40, and 0.38) during the entire storage period
(Fig. 2e). The interaction effect between variety and post-
harvest treatments in respect of titratable acidity was not
significant during the entire storage period. It was highest
(0.49%) in Sofol with unperforated LDPE combination at
4th day of storage, while it was the lowest (0.30%) in Roma
VF with control combination at 12th day of storage
followed by Sofol with control (0.35%) and Roma VF with
hot water (0.37%) (Table 9).
Vitamin C content
The ascorbic acid content of fruit pulp varied significantly
among the fruits of the two varieties. Sofol and Roma VF
contained vitamin C of 16.54 mg/100 g and 14.34 mg/100
g at the 4th day of storage, respectively, which decreases
gradually with the advancement of storage period shown
in Fig. 2d. Among the post-harvest treatments used in the
study significantly influenced on vitamin C content of
fruits during the entire storage period (Table 9).
Table 6 Combined effect of varieties and postharvest treatments on moisture content and dry matter content of tomato during
storage and ripening
Treatment
combination
Dry matter content (%) at different DAS Moisture content (%) at different DAS
48124812
V
1
T
1
12.20 13.96 15.38 87.80 86.04 84.62
V
1
T
2
12.20 13.70 15.12 87.80 86.30 84.88
V
1
T
3
10.93 11.93 12.92 89.07 88.07 87.08
V
1
T
4
10.47 11.37 12.72 89.53 88.63 87.28
V
1
T
5
9.83 10.43 11.85 90.17 89.57 88.15
V
1
T
6
9.73 10.18 10.71 90.27 89.82 89.29
V
1
T
7
9.07 9.82 10.58 90.93 90.18 89.42
V
1
T
8
10.27 11.00 12.33 89.73 89.00 87.67
V
2
T
1
8.90 10.88 11.80 91.10 89.12 88.20
V
2
T
2
8.30 10.03 11.75 91.70 89.97 88.25
V
2
T
3
8.20 10.00 11.68 91.80 90.00 88.32
V
2
T
4
8.13 9.96 11.68 91.87 90.04 88.32
V
2
T
5
7.80 8.42 9.41 92.20 91.58 90.59
V
2
T
6
7.54 8.30 9.10 92.46 91.70 90.90
V
2
T
7
7.33 8.20 9.00 92.67 91.80 91.00
V
2
T
8
7.97 9.02 10.17 92.03 90.98 89.83
LSD
0.05
0.881 0.650 0.806 0.573 0.473 0.913
LSD
0.01
1.187 0.876 1.085 0.772 0.637 1.231
Level of significance * ** ** ** ** **
* and ** indicate 5% and 1 % level of significance. V1: Roma VF, V2: Sofol, T1: Control, T2: Fruits stored at 10°C temperature, T3: Fruits stored at 15°C temperature,
T4: Hot water treatment (55°C) for 4 min, T5: tomato stored in earthen cooling pot, T6: Fruits stored in food grade plastic film, T7: Fruits stored in unperforated
plastic bags, T8: Fruits stored in perforated plastic bags
Table 7 Combined effect of varieties and different postharvest treatments on chilling injury level of tomato during storage and
ripening
Treatment
combination
Chilling injury (c) level at different days after storage
4681012141618
V
1
T
2
1.00 1.00 1.08 1.17 1.25 1.67 2.28 2.83
V
1
T
3
1.00 1.33 1.33 1.42 1.50 1.75 1.92 2.58
V
2
T
2
1.08 1.33 1.58 1.50 1.58 1.67 1.92 2.00
V
2
T
3
1.00 1.00 1.33 1.42 1.42 1.58 1.58 2.07
LSD
0.05
0.053 0.074 0.105 0.118 0.139 0.074 0.139 0.074
LSD
0.01
0.071 0.100 0.142 0.158 0.187 0.100 0.187 0.100
Level of significance NS ** ** ** ** ** NS **
NS not significant, V1 Roma VF, V2 Sofol, T2 fruits stored at 10 °C temperature, T3 fruits stored at 15 °C temperature
**1 % level of significance
Sinha et al. Bulletin of the National Research Centre (2019) 43:185 Page 7 of 12
Table 8 Combined effects of varieties and postharvest treatments on total soluble solids of tomato during storage and ripening
Treatment
combination
Total soluble solids (TSS) at different days after storage pH at different days after storage
4 8 12 4812
V
1
T
1
5.33 5.10 5.40 4.40 4.63 4.79
V
1
T
2
4.60 5.57 4.93 4.30 4.37 4.53
V
1
T
3
5.10 5.00 5.13 4.25 4.44 4.56
V
1
T
4
4.53 5.47 4.50 4.35 4.47 4.62
V
1
T
5
5.90 5.95 4.73 4.35 4.22 4.65
V
1
T
6
5.13 4.37 4.67 4.38 4.45 4.83
V
1
T
7
5.50 4.93 5.73 4.27 4.42 4.58
V
1
T
8
5.53 4.60 4.63 4.35 4.53 4.72
V
2
T
1
4.50 4.47 4.66 4.21 4.41 4.56
V
2
T
2
4.00 4.37 4.57 4.15 4.33 4.50
V
2
T
3
4.10 4.07 4.40 4.15 4.37 4.53
V
2
T
4
4.53 4.20 4.33 4.15 4.28 4.48
V
2
T
5
4.37 4.37 4.68 4.12 4.23 4.47
V
2
T
6
4.43 4.50 4.73 4.20 4.42 4.52
V
2
T
7
4.40 4.86 5.12 4.08 4.25 4.40
V
2
T
8
4.50 4.67 4.96 4.15 4.32 4.48
LSD
0.05
0.182 0.204 0.297 0.074 0.091 0.118
LSD
0.01
0.245 0.274 0.401 0.100 0.123 0.158
Level of significance ** ** ** NS ** *
Table 9 Combined effect of varieties and different postharvest treatments on vitamin C content and titratable acidity of tomato
Treatment
combination
Vitamin C (mg/100g) at different DAS Titratable Acidity (%) at different DAS
48124812
V
1
T
1
12.32 11.40 10.48 0.333 0.316 0.300
V
1
T
2
13.00 12.80 12.00 0.433 0.420 0.400
V
1
T
3
15.00 14.50 14.00 0.425 0.415 0.410
V
1
T
4
12.00 11.80 11.00 0.400 0.390 0.370
V
1
T
5
14.58 14.02 13.65 0.435 0.431 0.400
V
1
T
6
13.90 12.00 11.90 0.410 0.390 0.377
V
1
T
7
17.22 17.00 16.80 0.440 0.435 0.382
V
1
T
8
16.70 16.10 15.80 0.430 0.420 0.401
V
2
T
1
14.28 12.44 10.94 0.390 0.370 0.350
V
2
T
2
15.65 15.20 15.00 0.481 0.470 0.450
V
2
T
3
17.95 17.80 17.35 0.469 0.458 0.453
V
2
T
4
16.20 14.70 13.05 0.450 0.440 0.420
V
2
T
5
16.88 16.50 15.80 0.486 0.481 0.456
V
2
T
6
15.88 15.15 14.70 0.430 0.418 0.412
V
2
T
7
18.20 18.08 18.05 0.490 0.484 0.445
V
2
T
8
17.30 16.95 16.70 0.480 0.470 0.455
LSD
0.05
0.336 0.229 0.467 0.053 0.053 0.074
LSD
0.01
0.453 0.309 0.629 0.071 0.071 0.100
Level of significance ** ** ** NS NS NS
* and ** indicate 5% and 1 % level of significance, NS: No significance, V1: Roma VF, V2: Sofol, T1: Control, T2: Fruits stored at 10°C temperature, T3:
Fruits stored at 15°C temperature, T4: Hot water treatment (55°C) for 4 min, T5: tomato stored in earthen cooling pot, T6: Fruits stored in food grade
plastic film, T7: Fruits stored in unperforated plastic bags, T8: Fruits stored in perforated plastic bags
Sinha et al. Bulletin of the National Research Centre (2019) 43:185 Page 8 of 12
Disease incidence and severity
Variation in respect of percent disease incidence was
found highly significant between the varieties. It was ob-
served that disease incidence increased with the ad-
vancement of the storage period between the varieties.
However, the level of disease incidence was higher in
Roma VF than Sofol. The lower (18.06%) and the higher
(21.87%) disease incidences were recorded in Sofol at
the 6th and 16th day of storage but in the case of Roma
VF those values were 25.00% and 43.75%, respectively
presented in Fig. 3.
Variation in respect of disease severity was found to be
highly significant between the varieties at all days of
storage. A high disease severity level (24%) was observed
in a variety of Roma VF and it was lower (0.36%) and
was observed in variety Sofol. The combined effects of
variety and post-harvest treatments showed a highly sig-
nificant variation in terms of disease severity. On the
16th day of storage, the lowest (0.33%) disease severity
was in Sofol with 10
°
C treatment combination and the
highest (57%) disease severity was in Roma VF with
earthen pot combination (Table 10).
Effect of diseases and pathogens from infected tomato
fruits
Fusarium species is one of the common pathogens of
post-harvest disease-causing rot on tomato. Fusarium
can appear as saprophytes pathogens on plants. Harvested
tomatoes are susceptible to infections caused by Fusarium
due to its succulent epicarp which enables the fungal hy-
phae to penetrate deeply into the fruit. The disease symp-
toms include rots and softening of pulp which extends
into the center of the fruit. The rotted tissue is often
water-soaked and becomes covered by white, yellow, or
pinkish mycelia externally while the infected tissue is dis-
colored and appears pale brown presented in Fig. 4a.
Characteristics of Fusarium sp.
Fusarium typically produce both macro and micro co-
nidia from slender phialides. Macro conidia are hyaline,
two to several celled, often moderately curved, rather
wide and thick walled, and may have a slightly blunted
apical end and pedicellate basal cell. Micro conidia are
one- to two-celled, hyaline, pyriform, fusiform to ovoid,
straight, or curved. In the present study, most of the
spores were two-celled micro conidia (Fig. 4b)
Shelf life
Shelf life is an important issue for tomato, and it varies
from variety to variety. The longer shelf life was ob-
served in Sofol (17.22 days) than in Roma VF (15.04
days) (Fig. 5a). The shelf life of tomato fruits was ex-
tended following 10 °C, 15 °C, hot water treatment,
earthen cooling pot, plastic film wrap, unperforated
LDPE bag, and perforated LDPE bags over control to-
mato, respectively (Fig. 5b).
Discussion
Effect of varieties on shelf life and quality of tomato
A significant variation was obtained among the varieties
in relation to shelf life extension of tomatoes. The longer
shelf life was found in Sofol variety (17.22 days) than in
Roma VF (15.04 days). The shortest shelf life of Roma
VF was possibly due to the highest rate of disease inci-
dence and disease severity. The Roma VF performed
better than Sofol in both cases of color and firmness. It
changes due to the chlorophyll degradation or qualita-
tive and quantitative alternations of the green pigments
Fig. 3 Effect of variety on disease incidence of tomato during storage and ripening
Sinha et al. Bulletin of the National Research Centre (2019) 43:185 Page 9 of 12
into other pigments as reported by Salvador et al. (2007).
The moisture content was found comparatively higher in
Sofol than Roma VF. Higher losses of moisture content in
the variety Roma VF could be due to their poor resistance
mechanism. Although the percentage of weight loss is in-
creased at storage, but the percentage of dry matter con-
tent is increased because fruit losses more moisture.
In this study, storage at 10
°
C temperature and modified
atmosphere packaging without perforations (unperforated
LDPE bags) reduced the rate of color change and the
highest rate (6.13) of peel color formation was found in
control treatment. At the 16th day of storage, unperfor-
ated LDPE bags (4.17) and 10 °C temperature (4.88) stored
fruits were pink followed by the plastic film (5.75), earthen
pot (5.85), during the storage period the color of tomato
changes from the breaker to red (Table 3). Unperforated
LDPE packaging and low-temperature storage showed a
slower rate of firmness change of tomato during ripening
and storage. At the 16th day of storage, control showed
the highest rate of firmness (5.10) and modified atmos-
phere packaging without perforation showed the lowest
rate (3.29) of firmness (Table 4). Among the treatments,
unperforated LDPE and plastic film wrapping were the
best in terms of controlling weight loss similar to Pesis
et al. (1992). Most of the wrapping papers or bags signifi-
cantly reduced the percentage of physiological weight loss
in the fruits noticed by Sing et al. (2001). So, it can be con-
cluded that the weight loss of tomato during ripening may
be attributed to loss by respiration and loss of water
through various mechanisms.
Moreover, the decrease in moisture content during
storage was also reported by Pathmanaban et al. (1995).
The highest disease incidence was found in earthen pot
(70.84%) whereas the lowest (8.33 and 12.50%) disease
incidence was observed at 10
°
C and 15
°
C, respectively,
after 16th day of storage (Table 9). Feng et al. (1991) ob-
served that controlled or modified atmosphere storage
controlled post-harvest diseases. So, it can be concluded
that the disease severity of treated fruits was generally
lower than untreated fruits.
The shelf life of tomato fruits ranges from 10.25 to 22
days. The fruits covered with perforated plastic bag
showed extended shelf life by 7 days over control, which
was similar to the result observed by Yantarasri et al.
(1994) and Alves et al. (1998). The increase in shelf life
was probably due to the reduction of various gaseous (O
2
and CO
2
) exchange from the inner and outer atmosphere.
The shortest and longest shelf lives were observed in con-
trol (T
1
) and unperforated LDPE bags (T
7
)containing
fruits, respectively. In conclusion, the fruit storage at low
temperatures like 10 or 15
°
C temperature was good.
Combined effects of varieties and post-harvest treatment
The V
2
T
7
(Sofol with unperforated LDPE bags) combin-
ation showed slower changes in color than all other
combinations. Both varieties (Roma VF and Sofol) under
hot water treatment showed highest (9.16 and 12.28%)
weight loss, and the lowest (3.84 and 3.75%) weight loss
was found under unperforated LDPE bags at 14th day of
storage. The minimum weight losses in unperforated
Table 10 Analysis of variance (mean square) of the data for disease incidence
Source of vitiation df Disease incidence (%) at different days after storage
6101416
Treatment 15 552.15** 1443.34** 1916.73** 1930.02**
Variety (A) 1 833.583** 4200.208** 7501.500** 5743.500**
Postharvest treatment (B) 7 974.866** 2173.759** 2648.726** 2989.735**
A x B 7 89.226** 319.089** 386.917** 325.524**
Error 32 0.537 0.841 1.818 1.159
**Significant at 1% level of probability
Fig. 4 Photographs showing disease (a) symptom of Fusarium rot and (b) micro conidia of Fusarium sp.
Sinha et al. Bulletin of the National Research Centre (2019) 43:185 Page 10 of 12
plastic bag wrapping of fruits obtained in the present
study is supported by Tefera et al. (2007) and Martinez
et al. (1997).
The moisture content of fruit was significantly affected
by both variety and post-harvest treatments. At 4th day
of storage, the higher moisture content (92.67 and
92.46%) were found in Sofol with unperforated LDPE
packaging and plastic films wrapping respectively and
lower moisture content (87.80%) was found in Roma VF
with control and 10
°
C temperature treatment. The in-
crease in dry matter content with the advancement of
storage period may be attributed to the corresponding
decrease in moisture content due to osmotic withdrawal
of water from pulp to peel by transpiration and evapor-
ation. The maximum value of TSS (5.73%Brix) was ob-
served at the 12th day of storage in unperforated LDPE
sealed fruits cv. Roma VF and where the minimum value
of TSS (4.33%Brix) was observed in hot water treatment
in Sofol. The highest disease severity was recorded in
Roma VF held at earthen pot and the lower disease se-
verity was observed in Sofol with low-temperature stor-
age at 10
°
C.
At 12th day of storage, the highest pulp pH (4.83) ob-
served in cv. Roma VF sealed with plastic film whereas,
Sofol sealed with unperforated LDPE bag shown lowest
pulp pH (4.47) in the same days of storage. The com-
bined effects of variety and different post-harvest treat-
ments in respect of titratable acidity were statistically
not significant at different days of storage. Maximum
vitamin C was lost when the fruits were stored at room
temperature (28.2–31.1 °C). The highest vitamin C con-
tent 18.08 and 18.05 mg/100 g was recorded in Sofol
with unperforated LDPE bags combination and the low-
est 11.40 and 10.48 mg/100 g was recorded in Roma VF
with control combination at the 8th and 12th days of
storage, respectively. The longest shelf life (24 days) was
observed in tomato fruits of variety Sofol when held in
unperforated LDPE bags followed by 10
°
C (22 days) and
15
°
C (22 days). The shelf life of tomato at 10 and 15 °C
were statistically identical. The modified atmosphere
storage of tomato using LDPE bag enhanced shelf life,
which was probably due to the reduction of the ex-
change of various gases (O
2
,CO
2
) from inner and outer
atmosphere as well as slowing down the process leading
to ripening by different post-harvest treatments.
Conclusions
This study was found that the post-harvest treatments
caused a significant effect on color, firmness, weight loss,
moisture content, dry matter content, chilling injury,
total soluble solids, pH, titratable acidity, vitamin C con-
tent, disease incidence, disease severity, and shelf life.
The unperforated plastic bag was discovered to be the
best among all post-harvest treatments to reduce weight
loss, disease incidence, and severity of disease, and ex-
tend tomato shelf life. Therefore, it can be concluded
that the results of this experiment will be useful with
particular reference to long- and medium-term storage,
quality control, transportation and marketing, growers,
and consumers. Moreover, further studies are suggested
to examine the effects of other promising varieties and
post-harvest treatments on shelf life, quality and safety
of tomato in the agricultural supply chain in Bangladesh.
Abbreviations
LDPE: Low-density polyethylene; TA: Titratable acidity; TSS: Total soluble
solids
Acknowledgements
The authors are very grateful to Professor Dr. Md. Kamrul Hassan and
Professor Dr. M. F. Mondal of the Bangladesh Agricultural University for his
technical support and helpful for his comments and discussion and also
Fig. 5 aMain effects of variety on the shelf life of tomato during storage and ripening, vertical bar indicates LSD value at the 1% level of
significance. (V
1
Roma VF, V
2
Sofol) bMain effect of post-harvest treatments on the shelf life of tomato. Vertical bar indicates LSD value at the 1%
level of significance
Sinha et al. Bulletin of the National Research Centre (2019) 43:185 Page 11 of 12
thanks to the Department of Plant Pathology and Biochemistry and
Molecular Biology for identifying post-harvest diseases and causal pathogens
and chemical analysis of the experimental samples.
Authors’contributions
SRS contributed to the conceptualization, data curation, and
writing—original draft preparation. MASJ, MAR, MAA, MAK contributed to
the writing, review, and editing of the manuscript. AS supervised the study.
AS and MF contributed to data analysis and visualization. All authors revised,
read, and approved the final manuscript.
Funding
There are currently no funding sources in the design of the study and
collection, analysis, and interpretation of data and in writing the manuscript.
Availability of data and materials
The datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are
included in this study.
Ethics approval and consent to participate
Not applicable.
Consent for publication
Not applicable.
Competing interests
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
Author details
1
Department of Horticulture, Bangladesh Agricultural University,
Mymensingh, Bangladesh.
2
Institute of Environmental and Sustainable
development in Agriculture, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science,
Beijing 100081, China.
3
Department of Crop Genetics and Breeding, Institute
of Crop Sciences, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing 100081,
China.
4
Institute of Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning, Chinese
Academy of Agricultural Science (CAAS), Beijing, China.
5
Rural Development
Academy, Bogura 5842, Bangladesh.
Received: 5 August 2019 Accepted: 14 November 2019
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