Salvia Officinals L. herb quality and shelf life as affected by packaging type and keeping conditions on shelf

Abstract EN

A 4 x 2 factorial experiment was consummated during the two successive seasons of 2010 and 2011 at North Sinai Agric.

Res.

Station – Med.

& Aroma.

Dept., El-Arish City, North Sinai Governorate, Egypt to assess effect of packaging type (unpackaging, paper bags, foam dishes covered with cellophane or foam dishes covered with shrank film), keeping conditions on shelf (uncooling "25 ̊C and 25 – 40 % RH" or cooling "in refrigerator at 5±1 ̊C and at 70-80% RH") and their interactions on quality and shelf life of Salvia officinals L.

herb.

Packaging fresh sage herb in foam dishes covered with cellophane or shrank film reduced tissues respiration rate and weight loss, simultaneously kept herb quality since under these packaging treatments the herb contained the highest values of chlorophyll a & b and essential oil percentage comparing to unpackaged (control) or packaged herb in paper bags.

Keeping sage herb at low temperature (5±1 ̊C) and high RH (70- 80%) reduced respiration rate and weight loss%, but recorded the highest values represented chlorophyll a & b and essential oil % as compare to putting herb on shelf at room temperature (25 ̊C and 25 – 40 % RH).

Generally, these effects were reflected as doubling shelf life of kept herb under cooling conditions comparing to longevity of herb kept in the room temperature.

For interaction treatments between packaging types and keeping conditions, generally keeping the packaged sage herb in foam dishes covered with cellophane or shrank film in refrigerator at cool temperature and high RH resulted in the least respiration rate correlated with the highest contents of essential oil and chlorophyll in herb tissues.

Also, the same two interaction treatments increased the most main components of the extracted essential oil and significantly increased shelf life duration of herb comparing to the most other interaction treatments.

Conclusively, results of such research suggest possibility of packaging sage herb in foam dishes covered with cellophane or shrank film and kept it in refrigerator at 5±1 ̊C and at 70-80% RH for maintaining herb quality and for increasing shelf life duration.

Chose cellophane or shrank film for dish covering may be related to the price, exportation and herb marketing.