Studies On Safe Management Techniques Of Postharvest Decay And Quality Maintenance Of Garlic Scape

As the young flower stem of garlic, garlic scape is nutritional, functional and liked by theconsumers. The common quality changes of post-harvest garlic scape include: browning ordecay of spathe and bullet, expanding of the spathe, etc. These quality changes usuallyshorten the storage and shelf life, and bring the great economic losses. Treated by chemicalpreservative (Thiabendazole) and then storing in low temperature is the common measure tomaintain quality of post-harvest garlic scape at present. As consumers paying more attentionto the food safety, the development of safer preservative ingredients or technology withoutpreservative, to replace the current preservative, is the urgent needs of the industry of garlicscape. This experiment first screened the species and concentration of botanical ingredientsand then studied the influence of dip and fumigation of citral, geraniol and thymol, removal ofbullet and different package on quality of garlic scape. This study aimed to find simple，effective and safer methods for the decay control and quality maintenance of post-harvestgarlic scape and provide reliable technical support to enhance postharvest quality and foodsafety of garlic scape. The results showed that:1. After being immersed in the solution containing1.5%citral,0.4%geraniol or1.5%thymol respectively or being fumigated with100μl/L citral or100μl/L geraniol, quality of‘Cangshandatiantai’ garlic scapes during shelf life was investigated. The results showed that1.5%citral,0.4%geraniol or1.5%thymol dippment can better solve the mildew of garlicscape compared with the currently widely used Triabendazole.100μl/L citral and geraniolfumigation can significantly inhibit the growth of the mold of garlic scape compared with thecontrol group. The results showed that all treatments can inhibit the decay and senescence ofgarlic scape significantly. The loss of water content, soluble solids content, vitamin C andchlorophyll were also delayed by treatments. So good color was maintained and the loss ofnutrients was reduced.1.5%citral and100μl/L citral showed highest level of efficacy inmaintaining the quality of garlic scape compared to other treatments.2. In this study, the effect of removing the bulbet on shelf life quality of the garlic scapewas investigated. The results showed that treatment can inhibit the decay and senescence ofgarlic scape significantly. The loss of water content, soluble solids content, vitamin C and chlorophyll were also delayed by treatments. Studies showed that treatment can maintain thequality of garlic scape and extend the shelf life of garlic scape.3. In this study, the garlic bulbet of ‘Cangshandatiantai’ garlic scape was removed, putthem in the different bags and stored at low temperature. Indicators were determined atregular intervals. The results showed that the treatment of removing the garlic had little effecton the inhibiting the generation of crude fiber and the delaying of lose of vitamin C. But theloss of water content, soluble solids content and chlorophyll were delayed by the treatmentand the effect was obvious. Removal of bulbet at low temperature storage can solve theproblems of mildew of garlic scape and improve the food safety, but it had little effect on thechange of nutritional quality compared with removal of bulbet at room temperature.