Delaying Ripening and Maintaining Cherry Tomato Fruits Quality by Some Postharvest Applications

This research was conducted through the 2024 and 2025 seasons on cherry tomatoes cv. Katalina-522. Cherry tomatoes were harvested when they reached the pink stage to study the effect of various postharvest applications (1 methylcyclopropene (1-MCP) at 5%, activated carbon at 5g, active modified atmosphere packaging (MAP)at 3% O2 + 5% CO2 and 5% O2 + 5% CO2 and passive MAP) in addition to untreated fruits (control) on delaying ripening and preserving the quality characteristics of cherry tomatoes through cold storage at 10ºC with relative humidity 90-95% for 30 days. The findings showed that all postharvest applications outperformed the untreated fruits in preserving fruit quality and prolonging the storage period. However, 1-MCP and activated carbon treatments were successful in slowing down ripening and preserving quality attributes through all storage periods. Furthermore, 1-MCP proved to be themost efficient treatment in decreasing weight loss, lycopene accumulation, changes of color, and ethylene production and modifying the atmosphere inside the package, in addition to maintaining firmness, titratable acidity and total soluble solids, and the appearance of fruits was excellent after 30 days of storage with no signs of decay.