2017 ASHS Annual Conference

Chilling exposure of unripe tomato fruit to 5 °C for less than 5 days does not cause visual symptom of chilling injury (CI), however, such conditions often impact flavor quality (internal CI) after ripening. This was even true for full ripe tomatoes. This research was to test if a pre-chilling hot water dip or methyl salicylate (MeSA) fumigation could alleviate internal CI. Chilling treatment generally suppressed production of aldehyde, alcohol, ketone, ester, acid and terpene volatile compounds, including the following abundant and/or important volatiles: hexanal, trans-2-hexenal, 6-methyl-5-hepten-2-one, β-ionone, 2-methylbutanal, 2-phenylethanol, guaiacol and 2-isobutylthiazole. Heat treatment prior to chilling exposure alleviated the reduction of some key volatile compounds caused by chilling exposure, which agreed with sensory panel results in that panelists perceived more tomato flavor in “heating + chilling” treated fruit than fruit that were chilled only. MeSA alleviated the CI-induced reduction of a number of volatile compounds, such as trans-2-pentenal, 6-methyl-5-hepten-2-one, geranylacetone, neral, geranial and methyl salicylate, and thereby enhanced the sensory evaluation score.