ABSTRACT ‘Frangi’ papaya is a F1 hybrid cultivar produced by Malaysian Agrifood Corporation Bhd in 2006. Since then, ‘Frangi’ papaya is a new hybrid and its physiology may differ from another cultivars. Several importer countries, such as Japan and China, have made the vapour heat treatment (VHT) an export requirement for disinfestation of fruit flies in Malaysia. The exporting country is also required to carry out ripening treatments with ethylene before export. Therefore, the objective of this work was to determine the effects of maturity stages (4, 5 and 6) and ethylene treatments on ripening characteristics of vapour heat treated papaya during storage at 25 °C. Papaya fruits were treated with VHT systems. After VHT, the fruits were exposed with 100 µL.L–1 ethylene gas at 20 °C for 24 h. Non-ethylene treated fruits (control) were kept separately at 20 °C for 24 h. After 24 h, the fruits were removed from the ripening rooms, and stored at 25 °C. The ripening characteristics of fruits that reached maturity stages 4, 5, and 6 were recorded. Results showed that the fruits ripened normally at 25 °C with or without ethylene following VHT with respect to peel and pulp color, edible firmness and soluble solids concentration (SSC). Fruits at maturity stage 5 were considered at the edible stage by taking into account the firmness, SSC, titratable acidity, and ascorbic acid contents. It is recommended that no ethylene treatment is needed to ripen vapour heat treated fruits, since the ethylene treatment did not affect the ripening process of the fruits.

Clinacanthus nutans is a well recognized medicinal herb for its high phytochemical contents. Several aspects may contribute to the phytochemical contents, and thus determine the quality and efficacy of an herb. An experiment was conducted using a completely randomized design (CRD) with five replications, in a factorial arrangement of treatments. including two plant parts harvested at two different stages such as young leaves, young stems, matured leaves and matured stems, and four different storage durations such as 1, 2, 3 and 4 days. The study was aimed at determining how storage duration affects selected phytochemical contents of different plant parts of C. nutans at different harvesting stages. Total phytochemical content, total flavonoids content and DPPH radical scavenging activities are higher in young plants than in old plants, moreover, all those compounds are higher in leaves than in stems, and decrease gradually due to storage. Phytochemical, ascorbic acid and chlorophyll content of C. nutans differ among different plant parts and change due to storage. In general, young plant parts contain higher amount of phytochemicals, ascorbic acid and chlorophyll compared with matured parts confirming that phytochemicals content of C. nutans decreases when plants tend to maturity. Prolonged storage reduces phytochemical, ascorbic acid and chlorophyll content of C. nutans,which demands fresh use of this medicinal herb to avoid phytochemical losses. Further research focusing on the proper storage is necessary to minimize phytochemicals losses of C. nutans.