Quality of three cowpea green-grains cultivars refrigerated

The objective of this study was to evaluate the quality of green-grains from three cultivars of cowpea kept in refrigeration. The experiment was conducted at the Universidade Federal Rural de Pernambuco - Unidade Acadêmica de Serra Talhada. The experimental design was completely randomized with 6 replicates within a 3 x 4 factorial arrangement. The first factor consisted of three cultivars of cowpea (BRS-Guariba, BRSTumucumaque and BRS-Potengi) and the second factor consisted of four storage periods: 0, 7, 14 and 21 days. Packages consisted of 200 g of green beans of each cultivar, placed in 15 x 10 cm polypropylene bags of 15 μm thickness. After sealed, samples were kept at 5 °C ± 2 and 90 ± 5 % of relative humidity. There was an intense drop in total acidity in chlorophyll and carotenoids, that was visually perceived by a change in the tone of green and increased content of soluble solids during cold storage. The maximum conservation time for the conditions studied was 14 days. After this period, a slight darkening of the beans was noticed. This conservation time is longer than the packages currently found in the market. The BRS-Guariba and BRS-Potengi cultivars showed the smallest variations in pH, titratable acidity (TA), chlorophylls (CLT) and carotenoids (CRT). These two cultivars were more suitable for storage at refrigeration.