The Effect of Temperature on Banana Ripening and Ethylene Concentration

Abstract

Bananas are a climacteric fruit, so once they are harvested, they enter a “climate phase” where they continue to ripen. Many people can also attest to purchasing green bananas at the supermarket, and waiting for it to ripen over time so it becomes sweet enough to consume. From this universally shared experience, the ripening of the bananas was studied to see temperature as a controllable measure, by adding three banana replicates in three different temperature conditions, of 4ºC, 25ºC, and 40ºC for 5 days. The bananas were monitored and observations were recorded once a day over the duration of the experiment with visual ripeness and mass documentations. Other environmental conditions were controlled by wrapping and storing each banana in plastic wrap to minimise ripening prior to the experiment, and keeping the bananas in incubators of constant temperatures. It was found that bananas at 25ºC were qualitatively closest to the ideal “ripe” yellow colour and bananas at 40ºC had the greatest decrease in weight (ie. released the most amount of ethylene gas) by the end of the 5 days.