Abstract

                                A field experiment on curing studies in onion was conducted at College Orchard of Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore during 2009. This experiment was laid out in factorial completely randomized design (FCRD) with six treatments and three replications. The influences of different curing methods viz., bulbs with tops removed (T 1 ), bulbs with 2cm neck length (T 2 ), bulbs with 4cm neck length (T3 ), bulbs treated with sulphur fumigation (50g m -3 ) for three hours (T 4 ), bulbs treated with gamma rays @ 2kr (T 5 ), bulbs treated with gamma rays @4kr (T 6 ) in onion were studied. Among the above curing methods, bulbs with 2cm neck length (T 2 ) had improved quality parameters such as pyruvic acid (2.67μmol g -1 ), TSS content (13.77 o brix) and moisture content (93.95%). The same treatment recorded lowest physiological loss in weight (1.33 per cent), sprouting (0.09 per cent) and highest shelf life compared to other treatments.

Key words : Curing, keeping quality, aggregatum onion, shelf life.