Preliminary study on effects of environmental factors on respiratory rates of Agaricus bisporus in modified atmosphere packaging

The effects of temperature, the ratio of free volume in package to the volume of Agaricus bisporus, O₂, CO₂ concentration and the treatment time on the respiration rates of Agaricus bisporus were studied. The significant factors that affect the respiration rates of Agaricus bisporus were also investigated by multivariate analysis of variance and multiple regression analysis. The results demonstrate that the effects of temperature on the respiration rate R_O2, R_CO2 and respiratory quotient of Agaricus bisporus are much more significant than those of volume ratio; the respiration rate R_CO2 of Agaricus bisporus is markedly affected by the treatment time among three factors of O₂, CO₂ concentration and the treatment time at 25℃, 18℃, 4℃, but CO₂ concentration becomes the main factor that affected R_CO2 at 12℃. The effect of O₂ concentration on the respiration rate became greater while that of the CO₂ concentration and treatment time became less with the increase of volume ratio at 12℃.