Winter is the peak season for hoarding cabbage. Growers and dealers are racking their brains for the storage of cabbage. Xueyun Company would like to share here how to store and preserve a large amount of cabbage in cold storage

Using Cold Storage to Preserve Cabbage

Pre-treatment of Cabbage

The cabbage harvested from the fields should be healthy ones for storage. When the cabbage plant looks upright, its outer leaves will droop without bending. After selecting the plants with healthy appearance, appropriate trimming should be carried out on them. The selected cabbage should have no obvious or fatal damage, otherwise it will easily rot, which will affect the storage effect in the warehouse and endanger other plants. Similarly, the plants with pests and diseases should be removed, and the rotten leaves should be picked off and the outer yellow leaves should be torn off.

Pre-cooling of Cabbage in Cold Storage

Pre-cooling can effectively kill the harmful bacteria carried by fruits and vegetables and rapidly weaken the respiration of fruits and vegetables, making the storage effect of fruits and vegetables in the cold storage later more effective with less effort.

Before storage in the warehouse, we also need to first understand the relevant characteristics of cabbage. The freezing point of cabbage is around -1℃. Therefore, when using cold storage to preserve cabbage, a temperature range of -0.5℃ to 0.5℃ and a relative humidity of about 90% - 95% are more appropriate.

During the whole storage process of cabbage, as the storage stage changes, the requirements for environmental conditions are also different:

In the early stage of storage, the loss of cabbage is mainly due to the detachment of outer leaves caused by heat injury or respiration. Here, the necessity of pre-cooling should be emphasized again. Secondly, it is water loss, accounting for about 20% - 30% of the total loss. Therefore, the main management in this stage is to strictly control the temperature.

In the middle stage of storage, the loss of cabbage is not large, but the detachment of outer leaves and water loss are still the main losses, and it is most vulnerable to freezing damage. This stage accounts for about 5% - 10% of the total loss. The key point of management in this storage period is mainly to prevent freezing.

In the later stage of storage, due to long-term storage in the cold storage, phenomena such as sprouting will occur in cabbage, and it is very easy to be damaged by various microorganisms and bacteria, which will cause a certain degree of rot. Moreover, at this time, it is close to the critical point of the storage period, reaching the physiological senescence stage of cabbage. Coupled with partial water loss and detachment of outer leaves, the loss can be 10% - 15%. Therefore, in the storage stage, regulating appropriate temperature and humidity and regularly checking for diseases are the keys to management.

Storage of Cabbage in Controlled Atmosphere Storage

If there are extremely high storage requirements, the controlled atmosphere storage is naturally the best choice. The temperature in the controlled atmosphere storage for cabbage is around 0℃. Use controlled atmosphere equipment to adjust the gas in the closed cold storage to an oxygen content of 2% - 5% and a carbon dioxide content of 2% - 5%; or an oxygen content of 3% - 5% and a carbon dioxide content of 8% - 10%. Compared with ordinary cold storage for preservation, the rate of high-quality cabbage is significantly improved.

Packaging Precautions during Storage

When cabbage is stored in the cold storage, the relative humidity in the cold storage is relatively high. Therefore, certain packaging is required, such as packing individual cabbages in plastic film bags and then storing them in boxes to avoid problems such as the rotting of cabbage caused by excessive humidity.