Conservação pós-colheita de araruta em função da temperatura de armazenamento

Abstract

Arrowroot is considered non-conventional vegetables commonly found in tropical regions of Latin America. The species is rhizomatous and its roots are used for the production of starch and flour, which have a high content of starch. However, little is known about the peculiarities for the cultivation of the species, as well as the ideal conditions of storage, a fact that contributes to the post-harvest losses and the processing of the rhizomes. In view of the need for information on the postharvest conservation of the crop, the objective of this work was to study the quality of arrowroot rhizomes, Seta cultivar, as a function of time and conservation conditions, aiming at the production of seedlings and starch. After harvest the rhizomes were separated in homogeneous batches and packed in incubator BOD chambers at different temperatures: 5, 10 °C and at room temperature (19-23 °C). During storage, the loss of mass of the rhizomes was evaluated and after a period of thirty days was produced to the seedlings and the processing was performed in order to verify the yield of the starch extraction from the conserved rhizomes. The experimental design was completely randomized. The loss of mass of the rhizomes after storage ranged from 28.03 to 46.93%. The period and the storage temperature influenced the extraction yield of arrowroot starch, with values between 9.45 and 18.41 g.100 g-1. Thus, storage of arrowroot rhizomes is not recommended for the production of starch. For the production of seedlings it is feasible to use rhizomes stored at ambient temperature.