Evolution of the ripening and deterioration process of papaya treated with hydrolate and essential oil of rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis L.) in post-harvest storage

Introduction: The quality and post-harvest longevity of papaya fruits (Carica papaya L.) are some of the challenges in the production chain and rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis L) has the potential to extend the shelf life of stored fruits due to its antifungal properties. Objectives: The objective of this work was to verify whether the use of rosemary hydrolate and essential oil (EO) delays the post-harvest ripening and deterioration processes of papaya fruits. Methods: The fruits were harvested in a commercial orchard in the city of Itajobi-SP and taken to the laboratory of Agricultural Sciences of the Centro Universitário Padre Albino. The experiment was conducted in a completely randomized design, 7 treatments and 5 replications. The treatments used were: Distilled Water; Rosemary hydrolate, 4 doses (50, 100, 250 and 500 µl/L) of rosemary essential oil and sodium hypochlorite (200 mg/L). The fruits were evaluated every two days for external appearance, skin color and weight loss. The data were submitted to regression analysis, obtaining polynomial models referring to the evolution of changes in the external appearance, skin color and weight loss of the fruits. Results: The trend of decreasing the quality scores of the external appearance of the peel of the fruits for treatments with water and rosemary hydrosol is linear, happening earlier in comparison to the others that presented a quadratic response with scores of external appearance of the peel close to the maximum for a longer time. The evolution of the skin color notes of the fruits of all the treatments studied tended to present a quadratic behavior with the dose of 100 µl/L of rosemary oil showing a higher yellowing speed. For fruit mass loss, all treatments were significant for linear models with treatment with rosemary hydrolate showing the greatest mass loss at the end of the evaluations.Conclusion: The use of rosemary essential oil in post-harvest papaya fruits does not affect ripening parameters such as skin color and weight loss when compared to the use of water, however it delays fruit deterioration due to diseases.