SOME PHYSICAL PROPRETIES OF BILBERRIES AND HOW THE PACKING CONDITIONS INFLUENCE THEM

Abstract

I am interested in the way the physical proprieties of the bilberry (Vaccinium myrtillus) beans are influenced by the storage conditions. I have analised the dimensions (L,W,T), geometric mean diameter, sphericity, porosity, volume, and  unit mass before and after storing in the refrigerator at a temperature of +4⁰C. The beans have been packed in different packages and I noticed that the geometrical dimensions have varied so the average length, width, thickness and geometric mean diameter of seed ranged from: for SAMPLE 1 - Plastic box with lid – 8.18 to 7.73mm, 7.72 to 7.23mm, 6.13 to 5.48mm, 7.273 to 6.74mm;  for SAMPLE 2 - Glass package –  7.93 to 7.20mm, 7.54 to 7.07mm, 6.06 to 5.42mm and 7.12 to 6.49mm; for SAMPLE 3 - Double paper wrapper –8.82 to 7.44mm, 8.21 to 7.04mm, 6.66 to 5.19mm and 7.84 to 6.15mm; for SAMPLE 4 -Plastic bag – 8.14 to 6.35mm, 7.82 to 6.43mm, 5.98 to 4.61mm and 7.24 to 5.72mm.  After 5 days in refrigerator the average of unit mass of bilberries ranges from 0.437g to 0.433g. The objective of this study was to investigate the dependence between the packaging and the physical proprieties of bilberry, namely, size dimensions, bulk density, true density and porosity. This information is important to design equipment for aeration, storage and for omptimizing the equipment design for harvesting, handling, storing and so forth.