Characterization of the “armored” Tomato from the Adamawa-Cameroon Region for Preservation Purpose

Tomatoes are one of the most perishable fruits and vegetables and have a short shelf life. A large part of the tomatoes is lost after harvest. The so-called “armored” tomatoes grown in Adamaoua-Cameroon are no exception. Losses occur in harvesting, transport and storage. It is becoming urgent to design devices to solve this problem. In order to properly size these devices, we carried out a characterization of the ambient air and it was concluded that the ambient conditions were unfavorable for the preservation of these fruits. Then we made a characterization of the shape, diameter, length, mass and volume of this fruit. We found that the mean diameter is 3.58 cm, the standard deviation of the diameter set is 0.5 cm, the mean length 6.6 cm, the standard deviation of the length set is 0.84 cm, the mean side surface is 86.6 cm2, the standard deviation of the side surface set is 23.9 cm2, the mean mass of a fruit is 79.2g, the standard deviation of the mass set is 16.19g, the mean volume is 60.2 cm3 and the standard deviation of the volume set is 23.87 cm3. Subsequently, we measured the water content of samples of this fruit at different stages of ripening. It turned out that the water content of a tomato sample increases as it ripens. We also studied the colorimetric evolution of samples of “armored” tomatoes harvested when green ripe. We found that the samples did not ripen at the same speed. Some took 5 days while others took up to 7 days to reach red ripeness. After 8 days, it was observed that 12 samples were ripe and in good condition, so 44.8%.