PHYSICAL AND CHEMICAL CHANGES OCCURRING IN THE CARROT ROOT DURING STORAGE

Abstract

The harvested carrot (Daucus carota L.) root is an underground organ that has been dug out of the soil while it was in full metabolic activity. The aim of storage is to preserve its contents as they were at the end of the maturing period. The two basic conditions, as recommended by previous researchers and confirmed by our results, are a temperature of 1 C and a relative humidity of 98%. During storage, the level of total sugars remains almost constant whereas the ratio of nonreducing sugars to reducing sugars begins to decrease and then remains steady; after 8 wk of storage it increases again, reaches a maximum between 14 and 18 wk and then decreases. This may be related to the synthesis of oligosaccharides induced by spring reactivation. Phenol content increased with time; moreover, when ethylene is present, it induces the formation of isocoumarin and eugenin as well as two other related compounds. A new technique of controlled atmosphere storage has been assayed and proved to be successful.