Using respiration and respiratory quotient (RQ) in overall potato storage management

• Grant number: 23/07446-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Doctorate
• Start date: September 13, 2023
• End date: May 12, 2024
• Field of knowledge: Agronomical Sciences - Food Science and Technology
• Principal Investigator: Arthur Bernardes Cecílio Filho
• Grantee: Vanessa Maria Dantas Pedrosa
• Supervisor: Gustavo Henrique de Almeida Teixeira
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências Agrárias e Veterinárias (FCAV). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Jaboticabal. Jaboticabal , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: University of Idaho, Kimberly, United States
• Associated to the scholarship: 21/05957-8 - Sprouting inhibition in potatoes (Solanum tuberosum L.) using LED during long term storage, BP.DR

Abstract

The goals of storage management are to minimize carbohydrate losses due to respiration, provide moisture to minimize evaporative losses, provide oxygen (O2), remove carbon dioxide (CO2), and remove heat to maintain the desired temperature. Therefore, understanding potato physiology is necessary to understand the processes that occur in storage and how to control/minimize them, thus being able to improve storage management decisions using respiration rate data. If respiration is the main metabolic process to be controlled by cooling and ventilation, it needs to be taken into account by storage managers. We hypothesize that respiration rate varies by cultivar and conditions, and in turn this information can be used to predict ventilation requirements, weight loss potential, and general storage of the cultivar. Therefore, the aim of this study is to determine the respiratory rate (mg CO2 kg-1.h-1) of different potato cultivars using a gas chromatograph (GC) and use this information to develop respiratory rate models applying the the Michaelis-Menten equation. (AU)