Over 2003 to 2005 in Lithuanian Agricultural University the laboratory research was carried out concerning the effect of caraway seed and dill seeds essentials oils on the storage of five potato cultivars. Research results showed that after 7 months of storage the smallest natural mass losses occured in potatoes of Goda cultivars, which were treated by plant inhibitors. The smallest mass of sprouts was observed in Nida cultivars treated by plant inhibitors.
Water evaporation and changes in texture and colour caused by biophysical processes are important in fruit storage. Using various modified atmospheres, fruits of apple cultivars 'Staris', 'Auksis', 'Cortland' and 'Spartan' were stored at +1± 1 °C and relative humidity of 90-95%. The fruits were tested in the Biochemistry and Technology laboratory of the Institute of Horticulture, Lithuanian Research Centre for Agriculture and Forestry. Fruit texture and the colour parameters: L*, a*, b*, h° and C were measured before and after 8 months of storage. Soluble solids, respiration rate, sugar content and the amount of ascorbic acid were determined with standard methods. It was found that skin firmness of 'Spartan' apples was the highest (355.4 N/cm2). 'Auksis' apples had the softest skin (215.8 N/cm2). Fruit firmness changed slightly when the carbon dioxide concentration in the modified atmosphere was increased. The same tendency was found for flesh firmness at 2% and 4% of carbon dioxide. The amounts of soluble solids and sugars in fruits at 4% CO2 were stable. The obtained results showed that ascorbic acid losses in the modified atmospheres with 2% and 4% CO2 were respectively 18% and 10.5%. Fruit colour properties were more affected in terms of the colour coordinates a* and b*.
Maturity at harvest is very important attribute to tomatoes quality. This research showed that fully ripen tomato fruits had the highest amount of lycopene and β-carotene respectively 46.68 and 6.22 g kg-1. Therefore, it was determined correlation between amount of carotenoids and tomato ripening stages. Tomato fruit flesh lost it’s firmness through ripening period from 82.54 till 15.24 N cm-2. Fruit ripeness stage at harvest determines tomatoes biochemical composition and quality. Carotenoids (β-carotene, lycopene) syntheses during fruit ripening were the results of tomato colour and nutrition value changes, which results to correlation between colour indexes and tomato fruit quality attributes such as: hue angle (h°) and lycopene, colour index a* and lycopene, flesh firmness and hue angle (h°), skin firmness and chroma (C).