Abstract

An experiment was conducted to determine the effect of storage temperature on respiration rate of aggregate onion kept in closed PET containers with a product free volume ratio of 19 in two different storage conditions viz., ambient (28 ÌŠC) and refrigerated (5 ÌŠC). The average respiration rate in terms of O2 consumption and CO2 evolution under ambient condition was 30.15 and 25.02 and under refrigerated condition was 5.85 and 2.83 ml/kgh, respectively. The average RQ values of ambient and refrigerated stored onion was 0.83 and 0.51, respectively leading to conclude that respiration rate of onion both in terms of O2 consumption and CO2 evolution increased with increase in storage temperature.

Keywords: Aggregate onion, respiration rate, storage condition.