Effect of flax seed mucilage and guar gum coating enriched with postbiotics on postharvest storage of fig fruits (Ficus carica L.)
Vishnupriya Subramaniyan, Periyar Selvam Sellamuthu, Emmanuel Rotimi Sadiku, J. Jayaramudu
Abstract
Fresh fig or the common fig fruit is a climacteric and highly perishable fruit with a short shelf-life of ∼5 days. The edible coating is a prominent method to improve the shelf-life of fruits. Therefore, this study aims at analysing the different combinations of the coating solutions, namely: flax seed mucilage, guar gum, flax seed mucilage + 1 % guar gum, flax seed mucilage + 1 % guar gum + 10 % postbiotic ( Lactobacillus plantarum and Lactobacillus delbrueckii ), flax seed mucilage + 10 % postbiotic and 1 % guar gum + 10 % postbiotic-based edible coating solutions were employed to treat fresh fig fruits in order to enhance their shelf-life. The fruits were stored for 9 days at ambient temperature (25±2 °C) and the quality attributes of the fig fruits, such as the: titratable acidity, ascorbic acid content, ripening index, weight loss, firmness, color parameter, antioxidant properties, total phenol and flavonoid contents, were examined. This study showed that the flax seed mucilage + 1 % guar gum + 10 % postbiotic-coated fig fruits, improved the shelf-life, reduced postharvest-spoilage and had better quality attributes than the other coatings studied. Therefore, the flax seed mucilage and guar gum incorporated with postbiotics, as a novel edible coating, enhanced the postharvest shelf-life of fig fruits.