The effect of curing and leaves cutting in longterm storage of shallot

Abstract

Shallot is important as one of the spices for cooking various foods, as raw materials for the food industry, and as one of the ingredients for Indonesian traditional herbs. Postharvest handling is needed to extend its shelf life and to maintain its quality during storage. The aims of this research are: 1) to evaluate the effect of curing and leaves cutting on the quality changes of shallots during storage, and 2) to get the best pre-storage procedure in maintaining the quality of shallots during storage. Shallots leaves were cut before drying while the others are stored with leaves as control. Then, half of the samples were cured for three days, and sundried for four days, while other samples were sundried directly for seven days without curing them first. Then samples were stored for 16 weeks in two different conditions. The results showed that the treatment of curing without leaves cutting and stored at 5°C with 65-70% RH gave the best quality than other treatments. It could minimize damage and weight loss, maintaining hardness, color, and important ingredients until 12 weeks of storage. However, there were drastic decreases in some quality parameters, 32.0% damage and 38.7% weight loss after 16 weeks of storage.