To obtain the basic data on precooling effects for establishment the suitable postharvest handling technique or method of keeping high quality of vegetalble corn, the sweet, supersweet and waxy corn, (Danok #2, Cocktail #86 and Chalok #1), being mainly consumed as vegetables in Korea, were precooled with ice or vacuum cooling method immediately after harvest. The vacuum cooling was the most effective for the field heat removal of vegetable corn. It took only 30 min. at 4 to 5 torr of cold chamber pressure of vacuum precooler to lower the corn temperature from 30 to 2. The ice cooling was also thought to be a useful precooling method with relatively short cooling time of 6 hrs. The vegetable corn treated with vacuum or ice cooling showed low and stable respiration rates of 25.5 to 43.5 CO2 mg/kg/hr. when stored at 0∼2 while the samples stored at room temperature (20∼25) without precooling were as high as 64.1 to 245 CO, mg/kg/hr.

• 손영구
• 김성열