Assessment of the Physicochemical and Nutritional Parameters of Pineapple Fruits (Ananas comosus L.) and Post-harvest Bioconservation Test

Abstract

Pineapple (Ananas comosus (L)) is a monocotyledon, herbaceous, of the Bromeliad family. Côte d’Ivoire is the leading supplier of fresh pineapple to the European market. For reasons of sanitary quality and also because of the deterioration under the action of several factors of the marketable quality of the fruits, pineapple suffers a slump in the European market. To deal with the problem of fruit deterioration under the action of microorganisms, phytosanitary products are used. However, these foods present risks for consumers and may be responsible for public health problems. The objective of the present study is to reduce postharvest losses of pineapple fruit due to fungal contaminants using bacterial biopesticides such as Bacillus subtilis GA1, Pseudomonas fluorescens F19 and Pseudomonas fluorescens CI. Physicochemical analyzes were carried out on 200 samples composed of healthy pineapple fruits in order to determine the nutritional value of these fruits and to carry out conservation tests using the biomass and the supernatant of these 3 biopesticides. The physico-chemical analysis of the fresh pineapple fruits showed high humidity levels (83.23 to 85.5%), an acidic pH (3.79 to 3.88), levels of reducing sugars and total sugars of the order of 20.70 to 26.79 g / 100g and 59.42 to 62.32 g / 100g favourable to fungal growth. The conservation achieved made it possible to extend the shelf life of the fruits over fourteen (14) days for all the biopesticides against seven (7) days for the control. This study contributed to the development of biopesticides for post-harvest conservation of fruits in Côte d'Ivoire.