Postharvest conservation of three minimally processed cassava cultivars under cold storage

Abstract

Once harvested and stripped of their bark, cassava roots have a short shelf life under ambient conditions. This is due to their high-water content, which makes them highly susceptible to attack by decaying fungi and the action of enzymes that darken the roots. After a few days of storage in ambient conditions, these roots become inedible. They develop mold and vascular discoloration. For family farmers, keeping food frozen is a challenge due to the high cost of freezing and especially due to the fact that the main means of selling their products is at street markets without any structure for installing freezers. This necessitates understanding how the food behaves in a refrigerated environment. The objective of this study was to evaluate physical changes in cassava roots stored in LDPE packaging and PVC-wrapped polystyrene trays for three cultivars. Two experiments were conducted: experiment 1 involved low-density polyethylene (LDPE) packages with three cassava cultivars (BRS 397, BRS 398 and IAC 576-70), while experiment 2 used expanded polystyrene trays wrapped in polyvinyl chloride (PVC) with the same cultivars. The trials were carried out at the Federal University of Jataí, Brazil. The experimental design was a completely randomized design with three replications and storage periods as treatments (0, 5, 10, and 15 days). After pre-processing, the roots were packaged and stored in a refrigerated environment at 5±1°C. Measurements taken during storage included fresh weight loss, color difference, hue angle, and chroma. Overall, both packaging methods helped reduce mass loss of cassava roots stored at 5±1°C. The BRS 397 cultivar showed the lowest color difference over the course of the storage days, followed by the BRS 398 cultivar, which exhibited the same behavior as the BRS 397 cultivar until around day 7 or 8, with an increase in color difference until the last day of storage.