Postharvest Storage Quality and Tissue-Specific Ginsenoside Distribution of Field-Sorted Fresh Ginseng as Affected by Packaging Film and Post-Wash Peracetic Acid during Subzero Storage

This dataset supports the manuscript entitled “Postharvest Storage Quality and Tissue-Specific Ginsenoside Distribution of Field-Sorted Fresh Ginseng as Affected by Packaging Film and Post-Wash Peracetic Acid during Subzero Storage.” It contains raw and processed data obtained from six-year-old fresh ginseng harvested from a contiguous commercial field segment in Chungju, Chungcheongbuk-do, Republic of Korea. The roots were sorted into seven farmer-relevant classes (Extra, Large, Medium, Small, Mixed, Large samgyetang, and Small samgyetang), commercially washed and in-machine drained/dried, assigned to either a washed control or an 80 ppm peracetic acid surface-spray treatment, final air-dried on trays, packaged in PE50 or PE30/OPP30 film, and stored at −2 °C for up to 1 month plus 10 weeks. The deposited files include raw and processed data for in-package O₂ and CO₂ concentrations, CO₂ evolution-based respiration, cumulative weight loss, tissue moisture, color and visual marketability descriptors, DPPH radical scavenging activity, total phenolic content, and targeted LC quantification of ginsenosides Rg1 and Rb1. The dataset also includes statistical outputs for factorial ANOVA, Tukey-adjusted pairwise comparisons, correlation analyses, and tissue-level heatmap visualization, together with the source data for the tables and figures. LC concentrations were calculated without additional pre-injection dilution and were converted from mg/L to µg/g dry sample using the extraction ratio of 0.5 g dry sample to 5 mL extraction solvent (µg/g dry sample = mg/L × 10). Two roots showing softening during storage were analyzed separately as exploratory LC samples and were excluded from the balanced tissue-design inferential analyses. The accompanying README file describes the folder structure, variables, units, calculations, exclusions, and analysis notes.