Postharvest quality maintenance of tomatoes is very crucial because of its perishable nature. Calcium, directly involved in the physiological process and enzymatic activities, thereby helps in maintaining the postharvest quality. Increasing calcium concentration reduces respiration and ethylene production in succession; it increases the shelf life and quality of tomatoes. Hence, a field experiment was conducted with different sources and levels of Ca, namely, calcium sulfate, calcium nitrate, calcium silicate, poultry manure, and press mud applied at 0, 20, 40, 60, and 80 kg Ca ha−1. Ripened tomatoes were harvested from each plot. Eight fruits were selected randomly from every treatment and divided into destructive and nondestructive samples, arranged in a factorial completely randomized block design for conducting a storage study. Shelf life, ascorbic acid, lycopene, beta-carotene, and polygalacturonase were analyzed at a 5-day interval up to 15 days. The results revealed that the effect of calcium sources had significant (p ≤ 0.05) impacts on fruit quality. The tomatoes harvested from poultry manure retained the highest shelf life (15 days) at 80 kg Ca ha−1 and the highest ascorbic acid content (37.5 mg 100 g−1) at 60 kg Ca ha−1. However, the lowest lycopene (2.86 mg 100 g−1), beta-carotene (1.81 mg 100 g−1), and lesser polygalacturonase activity (1.99 kj m−2) were obtained with poultry manure at 80 kg Ca ha−1. From the results procured in this experiment, it was inferred that the application of poultry manure at 80 kg Ca ha−1 was found to be effective in improving the quality attributes of hybrid tomato as it imparts multiple essential nutrients along with calcium.
Key words: Keywords: Calcium, Tomato, Fruit quality, Enzyme, Biochemical constituents, Shelf life
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