Abstract: In this study, the effects of treatment with different concentrations of calcium lactate on the quality of baby ginger rhizome were studied by multivariate analysis. The One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed that calcium lactate treatment could significantly inhibit decay incidence and the decrease in color difference (ΔE* value) and hardness. It effectively delayed the decrease in total phenol, gingerol and 6-gingerol contents. Principal component analysis and the comprehensive evaluation model showed that calcium lactate treatment delayed the decline of fruit quality during storage. The correlation analysis indicated that total phenol content was significantly positively correlated with 6-gingerol content (r = 0.946, P < 0.01), and hardness was positively correlated with brittleness (r = 0.846, P < 0.05) and negatively correlated with polyphenol oxidase activity (r = -0.883, P < 0.05). Path analysis showed that ΔE* value, hardness, total phenol content and peroxidase activity had a greater direct effect on decay incidence with path coefficients of 1.347, 0.345, ?0.482 and 0.396, respectively. All other indicators had an indirect effect through these four indicators.

Key words: baby ginger rhizome, calcium lactate, storage quality, multivariate analysis