Impact of Delayed Cooling and Precooling Parameters on Physical Properties of Potatoes: A Storage Study

Abstract

Field Heat is one of the significant factors contributing to post-harvest losses of various agricultural produce. Precooling is necessary to counter the field heat, maintain the quality and increase the shelf life of the farm produce. Potato was chosen as it is one of the most essential staple products worldwide and can be consumed in various forms. This study was conducted to determine the impact of field heat and precooling parameters on potatoes' quality and shelf life. The study constitutes two components. The first component aims to understand the implications of field heat on the quality of the produce by gradually increasing the time delay between harvest and precooling from 0h to 64h. As the time of exposure to field heat increased, the quality of potatoes seemed to decrease gradually. The second component was conducted to understand the effect of precooling variables (Temperature & Relative Humidity) on the quality of produce by varying temperature between 6°C to 10°C and relative humidity between 87–95%. A comparison was made between precooled and not precooled potatoes to understand the effect of precooling on the overall quality of the potatoes. The residual values obtained from comparison revealed that the precooled samples had significantly less variation from fresh samples than those that were not precooled.