Abstract

Rambutan is one delicious fruit popularly cultivated in tropical regions. Its quality goes down rapidly within few days in storage and distribution. Due to its high perishability, it's necessary to extend its shelf life by ensuring the minimal changes of physicochemical characteristics. Calcium chloride, 1-Methylcyclopropene (1-MCP) and salicylic acid have been demonstrated to be effective in pre-storage treatment for fruits and vegetables. There was not any research mentioned to the incorporation of these agents on rambutan fruit to verify the synergistic effect. This research was conducted at STNanotech laboratory in 2021 to evaluate to observe the quality attributes of pretreated rambutan fruit during 15 days of storage at ambient temperature. Rambutan fruit was submersed 2 minutes in different solutions: (1) fresh water only as control, (2) 2 mM salicylic acid, (3) 2% CaCl2 , (4) 2|uL/L 1-MCP, (5) 1 mM salicylic acid + 1% CaCl2, (6) 1 mM salicylic acid + 1|uL/L 1-MCP, (7) 1% CaCl2 + 1|L/L 1-MCP, (8) 0.5 mM salicylic acid + 0.5% CaCl2 + 0.5|L/L 1-MCP. The pretreated samples were drained 5 minutes on racks to remove excess water. These fruit groups were then individually packed in polyethylene boxes (14 x 6 x 4 cm, length x width x height) at ambient temperature for 15 days. In 3 day-interval, samples were taken to determine weight loss, firmness, decay index, total soluble solid, vitamin C, total phenolic content. Results suggested that the combination of 0.5 mM salicylic acid + 0.5% CaCl2 + 0.5|L/L 1-MCP was beneficial to delay fruit weight loss, softening, decay while maintaining total soluble solid, vitamin C and total phenolic content of rambutan fruit during storage by limiting the cell wall decomposition and the cell wall enzymatic hydrolysis.