Effect of Storage Conditions on Functional Compositions of Chrysanthemum morifolium

This work aimed to study the effects of packaging material and storage temperature on the functional components of Chinese herb Chrysanthemum morifolium. Chrysanthemum morifolium samples were stored in aluminum foil, kraft paper and polyethylene packages which were three kinds of widely-used package materials in industry, and then kept at freezing (−20 ℃), cold (2 ℃) and room temperature (20 ℃), respectively. The moisture, total sugar, flavonoids, chlorogenic acid, luteolin and 3, 5-O-dicaffeyl quininic acid of samples were determined for analyzing their variation trends. Correlation analysis (CA) showed that the moisture of samples was closely correlated with its storage time, but other four compositions were negatively correlated with it. By building the Binary nonlinear regression models of compositions against temperature and storage time, the functional compositions of Chrysanthemum morifolium stored in different package materials could kept relatively stable at freezing and cold storage conditions, the difference was not significant (P>0.05). However, at room temperature, the quality indexes of samples went bad more quickly, and the differences between three package materials were significant (P<0.05). Herein, aluminum foil packages made the variations of all compositions of Chrysanthemum morifolium lower than kraft paper and polyethylene package. Therefore, considering the variation rules of functional components and the economic cost of storage, it is suggested that Chrysanthemum morifolium should be packaged in aluminum foil bags and stored in cold storage.