Effect of calcium acetylide on fruit ripening in two banana cultivars

Resumen

The irrational use of ripening agents can cause damage to banana composition. Therefore, the objective of this research was to analyze the use of calcium acetylide in fruits of Musa paradisiaca L., Dominico and Barraganete varieties. A completely randomized design (CRD) with factorial arrangement A x B x C was used, with twelve treatments and three replications, for the determination of differences between means Tukey was used (p≤ 0.05). The variables evaluated were: ripening time, dry matter content, moisture, pH, energy, brix degrees, acidity, pulp hardness, peel dry matter, peel moisture and peel color, for which a total of 36 boxes were used, which were sampled at two times: 48 and 72 hours after the calcium acetylide was applied. Regarding the results, it should be noted that, regardless of the variety, both in physical and qualitative parameters in fruit pulp, all treatments exposed to calcium acetylide were outstanding. However, within chemical parameters such as energy and dry matter content, the controls stood out, respectively. In conclusion, there was a marked influence of calcium acetylide as an artificial ripening agent over natural ripening in the other aspects evaluated, especially in the ripening time variable, where the treatments exposed to it were able to obtain an advantage of more than 50% of time in relation to the controls.