APPLICATION OF VIBRATION TECHNIQUE FOR THE CONTROL OF PHYSICAL PROPERTIES OF YAM (Dioscorea spp.) SPROUTS DURING STORAGE IN FUNAAB, NIGERIA ENVIRONMENT

Early sprouting of yam tuber is a typical problem during storage resulting into weight losses, deterioration, shrinkage and reduction in quality. This research work therefore carried out investigation on the application of vibration technique for the control of physical properties of yam (Dioscorea spp.) sprouts during storage in FUNAAB, Nigeria environment. The physical properties (length, number and weight of sprout, number of leaves and weight of roots) of the yam sprouts were determined for 140 white yam tubers. The yam tubers were divided into 108 experiment and 32 as control. The factors of the experimental design examined were frequency, amplitude and time of vibration of low (1 – 5 Hz, 5 mm and 3 minutes), medium (60 – 100 Hz, 10 mm and 10 minutes) and high (150 – 200 Hz, 20 mm and 15 minutes) respectively; weight of yam tuber of two levels of small (0.1 – 2.9 kg) and big (3.0 – 5.0 kg) were also considered. The tubers were stored for ten weeks after vibration, the physical properties of the yam sprouts were observed and records were taken every week. All the physical properties of yam sprouts examined followed the same trend. It was discovered that as the frequency, amplitude and time of vibration were increasing, the physical properties of the yam sprouts studied were decreasing significantly at p < 0.05 for both weight of yams between 0.1 – 2.9 kg and between 3.0 – 5.0 kg. The results revealed that mechanical vibrations ignificantly help in slowing down sprouting in yam tubers.