Instrumental textural changes in banana (var. Pachbale) during ripening under active and passive modified atmosphere

Textural properties of modified atmosphere packaged banana (var. Pachbale), stored at 13 +/- 1 degrees C, followed by ethrel induced ripening at 30 +/- 1 degrees C were studied. Modified atmosphere included active as well as passive types involving flushing of polyethylene pouches (100 gauge) with specific gas mixture (3% O-2 + 5% CO2 + 92% N-2) at partial vacuum (52.63 kPa), respectively. The MAP applications resulted in varied response of various textural parameters including penetration, shear, force-relaxation, and instrumental texture profile analysis. All the parameters showed a decline except adhesiveness with the progress in ripening. Both the gas flushed, as well as passive MAP stored samples, followed a trend similar to that for control ones, however, the partial vacuum packaged bananas showed persistence of overall texture followed by normal ripening under ethrel induction. The ripened fruits from all the three types of MAP applications did not show any impediment to the instrumental textural quality. In the case of partial vacuum packaged samples, a threshold low temperature duration of 30 days was found to be optimal to avoid abnormal ripening in terms of texture. The instrumental textural kinetic for TPA parameters was found to follow linear model for a longer duration of the storage at low temperature (13 +/- 1 degrees C) with high correlation coefficients ranging from 0.845 to 0.989.