USING ETHREL FOR BANANA RIPENING

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Department of Food Science and Technology, Faculty of Agriculture, Al-Azhar University, Nasr city, Cairo, Egypt

2 Food Technology Research Institute, Agricultural Research Center, Giza, Egypt

Abstract

Three banana varieties, namely, Hindi, Maghraby and Williams, produced in Egypt were ripened by dipping in 250, 500, 750, 1000, and 1250 ppm of ethrel. The effect of dipping treatments was studied through measuring physical, chemical and organoleptic properties, these properties were measured at 3 days intervals after treatments for up to 12 days. Phy sical properties revealed that when the ethrel concentration increased the percentage of weight loss decreased. Chemical properties showed an increase in total soluble solids and titratable acidity until 9 days then decreased gradually during ripening. All treatments had high sugar contents, however ascorbic acid de­creased by increasing the ehtrel concentrations. Ethrel treatments highly decreased the level of phenols in banana during storage. Treatments of banana fruits with different concentrations of ethref gave better taste compared to the untreated fruits (control).