Some Effects of TAL Pro-long Coating on Ripening Bananas

Abstract

Coating bananas with TAL Pro-long modified their internal atmospheres by reducing the permeability of the fruit skin to gases. Permeability of control fruit to carbon dioxide was greater than that to oxygen and ethylene, and this differential permeability was enhanced by coating. This resulted in a depression of the fruit's internal oxygen content which affected ripening without a concomitant increase in the levels of carbon dioxide which could have proved toxic. The skins of coated fruit lost chlorophyll more slowly than controls and there was a small effect on the accumulation of monosaccharides in the fruit pulp. These effects were associated with depressed rates of respiration and ethylene production in the coated fruit, but the accumulation of acetaldehyde and ethanol was no more rapid than in controls.