Ventilation of Mechanical Refrigerator Cars to Prevent Carbon Dioxide Accumulation and Brown Stain in Lettuce Loads

Joseph K. Stewart, M. J. Ceponis and Broderick A. Billeter

No 313259, Marketing Research Reports from United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Marketing Service, Transportation and Marketing Program

Abstract: Excerpts from the report: Increased concentrations of carbon dioxide (C02) have been shown in both laboratory and shipping tests to cause brown stain, a physiological disorder of lettuce. Accumulations of C02 in railcars of lettuce have been detected at east coast destinations since 1967, and concentrations as high as 6.6 percent have been observed. Three separate studies were conducted in 1970 and 1971 to develop practical methods of preventing the accumulation of dangerous levels of CO2 in conventional railcars of lettuce. The first two were preliminary and data for those are presented in the Appendix. The third study involved 28 commercial shipments of lettuce from California to the east coast, in which the water drains of 10 cars were propped open to partially ventilate the loads. Modified atmosphere cars also were studied in these tests.

Keywords: Crop Production/Industries; Marketing; Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 18
Date: 1973-04
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/313259/files/mrr978.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:uamsmr:313259

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.313259

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Marketing Research Reports from United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Marketing Service, Transportation and Marketing Program Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().