QUALITY OF TOMATOES DURING STORAGE

Tomatoes (Solanumly copersicum) are well known antioxidants, vitamins and other health beneficial compounds containing vegetable. Different qualitative and quantitative changes of chemical composition take place during tomato fruit ripening and storage. Research with the aim to evaluate the chemical composition (soluble solids, titratable acidity, vitamin C, total phenols) of tomatoes stored under ambient conditions was set up during year 2016. The study involved five tomato varieties cultivated and collected from greenhouse at green stage of ripening, then stored at room air temperature from 18.0 degrees C to 19.0 degrees C and relative humidity from 40.2% to 50.6% for 36 days. Collected data showed that the highest increase (in average for 12.6%) of total soluble solids content was observed till 24 days of storage. It was found that content of vitamin C during ripening increased till the 24 day of the storage and it significantly depends on tomato variety (from 4.21% in variety Sakura F1 till 33.72% in variety Black Cherry F1). Further the content of vitamin C decreased and after 36 days of storage it was less than 7% compared with the beginning of the experiment. The titratable acidity was significantly (p<0.05) different among the tomato varieties and depended on the stage of ripening. It varied between 0.841 +/- 0.012 g 100 g(-1) (Sakura F1) at harvest and 0.302 +/- 0.009 g 100 g(-1) (Golden Nudget F1) at the end of storage. According to results the content of phenols during storage was variable and therefore the correlations were not observed.