PHYSICAL AND SENSORY EVALUATION OF TOMATO (Lycopersicon esculentum) USING DIRECT-TYPE EVAPORATIVE COOLER

     The study on "Physical and Sensory evaluation of Tomato (lycopersicon esculentum) Using Direct Type Evaporative Cooler" was conducted to determine if the use of evaporative cooler is most efficient option for prolonging the shell life against ambient and mechanical refrigerator and to evaluate the sensory properties of tomatoes in each storage conditions. It was conducted at the Department of Agricultural Engineering, College of Agriculture, Mindanao State University, General Santos City.

     A Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) and compared with Least Significant Difference (LSD) were used with three treatment storage conditions namely; ambient condition (control), mechanical refrigerator, and evaporative cooler with 24 hours working condition which was replicated three times. The temperature was recorded every day within a 2 hours interval. The pH and total soluble solids were recorded daily. The sensory evaluation was conducted every seventh day of each replication at 4:00 P.M. Each treatments were fully loaded of tomatoes.

     Results have shown that there is a significant difference among each treatment in terms of dry bulb temperature reduction, relative humidity, percentage weight loss, and sensorial parameters such as peel color, peel texture, aroma, firmness, and marketability, The percentage weight loss of tomatoes stored in evaporative cooler were close enough to the tomatoes in mechanical refrigerator even the big cap in terms of dry bulb temperature in each storage. This is because the relative humidity on the evaporative cooler was high which provides moisture to avoid more water loss in each day of storage. However, total soluble solids and pll level results are not significantly different among treatments. Even though the pH level of tomatoes in evaporative cooler is not significantly different in other treatments, it showed the lowest pH level after 7 days of storing in three replications.