Abstract:To investigate the impact of temperature and packaging on the shelf-life of litchi, effects of different parameters on quality loss rate, browning index, marketable fruit rate, chromatic aberration, total soluble solid (TSS) content and titratable acid (TA) content of. exposed and perforated bags packed litchi of “Huizhi” at room temperature shelf and low temperature shelf were studied. The results showed that both low temperature shelf and packaging can extend litchi’s shelf life. The quality indicators of decay speed from fast to slow was as follows: exposed litchi at room temperature, packaged litchi at room temperature, exposed litchi at low temperature, packaged litchi at low temperature. Temperature showed the highest effect on litchi’s shelf life and low-temperature shelf efficiently reduced the deterioration rate of litchi. Perforated polyethylene film packaging could also reduce the decay of litchi quality, but the influence was lower than that of shelf temperature. Litchi’s marketable fruit rate on shelf at room temperature without packaging decreased to 0 after 30 hours while that at low temperature and packaging remained 9.20% after 60 hours. Compared with exposed room temperature shelf, low-temperature shelf and perforated polyethylene film packaging could extend litchi shelf life more than double. The results of this research provided reference for increase of the litchi shelf life during strorage.
