QUALITY STUDIES IN CAULIFLOWER

The conditions for the formation and the maintenance of high vitamin C content in various vegetables, and the linkage of this to other characteristics.

One of the crops selected for this study is cauliflower which has a rather high content of vitamin C. Cauliflower is a rather important vegetable both as a fresh produce and in processed stage. In recent years quick frozen cauliflower has played an increasing role at the Norwegian market. The content of vitamin C in cauliflower is fairly stable, both in fresh and frozen produce. It is an indication that the content of vitamin C is higher in the North than in the South of Scandinavia. This was demonstrated in the Nordic studies undertaken in the early seventies (1).

The content of vitamin C is regarded as a general quality characteristics and is supposendly linked with other characters such as quality and quantity of sugars.

From the analysis available at our department, it turns out that the readings on vitamin C content some time are capricious variable. The scope of this study is to determine some of the reasons for the variation. The factors we like to study are the effects of a) Cultivars, b) Degree of maturity, c) Environmental influence especially climatic, d) Postharvest factors such as storage conditions and storage period.

As for part d some figures from a storage experiment can be referred to (2). In table I data on vitamin C content at different storage intervals are quoted from storage at 0°C and 20°C. In figure 1 relative changes of the vitamin C content at 0°C during the first 4 weeks are presented. Cauliflower, cabbage and rutabaga are compared. Figure 2 presents the results at storage temperature 20°C.

Table 1. L-ascorbic acid (LAS) in cauliflower during storage.

Storage tempe-

Storage period

rature

1 day

3 days

1 week

2 weeks

4 weeks

8 weeks

LAS, mg/100 g fresh weight	0°C	67	62 (62–62)	68 (67–68)	60 (57–63)	60 (59–61)	61 (56–66)
	20°C	67	46 (47–45)	45 (45–45)	34 (34–34)

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