Main Article Content

Abstract

Mas Kirana banana is one of the popular banana varieties, generally grown in Indonesia, and is a major supporter of the domestic, export banana industry, and trade. The short shelf life of fruit is the main obstacle in exporting Indonesian fruits to foreign countries. One of the ways to maintain the quality of bananas during transportation, distribution, and storage are to maintain the green life or delay the ripening process which is adapted to the distribution of both the domestic market and the export market with eating quality according to consumer preferences. Banana ripening process can be slowed down (maintaining green life) by using ethylene absorber made from Zeolite-KMnO4, which functions to absorb ethylene production in climacteric fruit. The purpose of this study is to examine and analyze the effect of using EAB (Ethylene Absorber Bag) on green life (delay time) for Mas Kirana bananas and examine the effect of the long delay on changes in quality andeating quality post EAB removed from packaging. EAB was applied to Mas Kirana bananas weighing 1,000 ± 50 g which were packaged using perforated HDPE plastic with a diameter of ± 2 cm with 18 holes. EAB was removed from the packaging according to the maturity delay of 12 and 20 days, then the bananas were stored at 27 oC for natural ripening. The results showed that the application of EAB was able to maintain the green age of bananas according to the good shelf-life scenario at room temperature (27 oC). The natural maturation process takes 2 days after the EAB is released for all scenarios. The length of time until the panelists didn't like it was 18 and 25 days, and the control only measured up to 12 days.

Keywords

Banana Mas kirana, eating quality, storage temperature, oxidizer zeolite KMnO4

Article Details