Effect of Wood Ash Treatment on Quality Parameters of Matured Green Tomato Fruit (Solanum lycopersicum L.) during Storage

Post-Harvest challenge accounts for 40-50% of losses in tomato value-chain in Nigeria and other parts of the world. This study evaluated the effects of wood ash treatment on the sensory, physicochemical, nutritional and mineral compositions of green tomato stored under ambient conditions (28.3ºC, 67%). Green tomato (kerewa var.) was harvested from University of Ilorin, Nigeria and brought to the Chemistry/Biochemistry laboratory of Nigerian Stored Products Research Institute, Ilorin, Nigeria, cooled by aeration, weighed and divided into 3 lots (A0=control; A1=1: 1, tomato: wood ash; A2=1: 2, tomato: wood ash). These were kept in uniformly sized paper carton (170 mm×120 mm×140 mm) on the shelf for 28 days. Sensory attributes were assessed on 5-point hedonic scale after storage, moisture and mineral analyses were conducted using [11], pH, acidity, soluble solids and carotenoids were estimated using [13] methods while vitamin C content was evaluated with [14] method. No significant (p>0.05) difference was observed between A1 and A2 in their sensory scores whereas both were significantly (p<0.05) higher than control (A0). Weight loss (%) and decay incidence (%) were significantly (p<0.05) higher in control (29.39% and 16.42% respectively) compared to A1 (4.61% and 4.65% respectively) and A2 (8.22% and 4.76% respectively). Moisture content of control (90.48%) was significantly (p<0.05) higher than A1 (85.78%) and A2 (87.99%). Similarly, the pH, brix-acid ratio and vitamin C of control were significantly (p<0.05) higher than those of A1 and A2, the acidity of control was significantly (p<0.05) lower than A1 and A2 while there was no significant (p>0.05) difference in the soluble solid contents of control, A1 and A2. The study showed that wood ash could be used in the post-harvest handling of matured green tomato as the results indicated that groups treated with wood ash demonstrated good indices of storability at ambient conditions for 28 days.