BEHAVIOR OF NONI FRUIT (MORINDA CITRIFOLIA L.) AT DIFFERENTTEMPERATURES OF POSTHARVEST STORAGE

Noni is a tropical climacteric fruit with very limited postharvest life. The objective of this research was to evaluate the behavior of the noni fruit, stored at 0, 5, 15 and 28 + 2 C (control). For the experiment we used pest and desease free fruit, with no physical defects, degree of maturity (GM2) (fruit with 50% green area), mean weight of 122 g, pH 4.82 and 7.0 Brix. The results indicated that the fruit stored at 0 to 5 C were severely damaged by cold. At 15 C, postharvest life was increased to 12 days, and the fruits showed the following changes: 13.40 % weight loss, pH 5.19, Brix 10.0 and GM3 (fruits with more than 50% of the bead area colored). Compared to fruit stored at room temperature (28 + 2 C), the third day after the experiment, the fruits showed the fo-llowing characteristics: 2.73 % weight loss, pH 8.13, Brix 10 and GM4 (fully mature fruits were dark brown). We conclude that by storing the fruit at a moderate temperature (15 C), it is kept up to 12 days in good physicochemical conditions, increa-sing its postharvest life, to offer fresh fruit in good organoleptic condition for demanding and distant markets, reducing commercialization loss.