Effect of some essential oils used as alternative sweet potato sprout control during storage

Abstract EN

This study was carried out during two successive seasons of 2017/2018 and 2018/ 2019 on sweet potato roots of Beauregard cultivar which harvested at fully mature stage to evaluate the performance of jasmine oil, mint oil and clove oil at the concentrations of 100 ppm during storage as a natural alternative to chlorpropham (CIPC) at the concentrations of 50 ppm for control sprouting and maintaining quality of sweet potato roots stored at 13°C and 90% relative humidity (RH) for 5 months plus 7 days at 20°C and 75% RH (shelf life).

The results showed that the percentage of weight loss, sprouting and decay score were increased with prolonging the storage period, while roots general appearance (score), total sugar content and total carotene content were decreased with time of storage.

All treatments retained roots weight during storage as compared with the control (untreated) roots.

No sprouts and decay were observed with jasmine oil and CIPCtreatments in all storage periods, while these characters started to be shown early after two months in sprouting and after 3 months in decay of storage with untreated roots (control).

Roots treated with jasmine oil or chlorpropham treatments were the most effective for maintaining general appearance followed clove oil and mint oil, while untreated roots (control) recorded the lowest one.

Sweet potato roots treated with jasmine oil and CIPC treatments were significantly higher in total carotene content as compared with the other treatments.

The results suggest that sweet potato roots treated with jasmine oil at 100 ppm was a promising technique as natural alternative to CIPC for control sprouting and maintenance quality during storage at 13°C and 90% RH for 5 months plus 7 days at 20°C and 75% RH (shelf life).