Author(s):

K Prasad and RR Sharma

Abstract: Postharvest quality of mango fruits comprises of external and internal quality and is representative of overall appeal and hidden valued biochemical of mango fruits respectively. Postharvest quality of mango fruits is an important factor for trade at the national and international level, and it not only determines the price of fruit, but also consumer preference to the purchase at marketing place. Mango fruits are very prone to postharvest quality loss, deterioration of which starts right from harvesting and increases tremendously during transport, retail and marketing. Hence, an attempt was made to observe the effect of harvesting technique on cosmetic appeal, physiological and biochemical attributes of mango fruits. The studies were attempted on four commercial cultivars of mango (‘Amrapali’, ‘Chausa’, ‘Dushehari’ and ‘Langra’) grown at ICAR-IARI, New Delhi. Fruits were harvested mechanically (pole mount harvester) and manually under two different lots, which were then de-saped, precooled and stored separately in corrugated fibre board boxes (CFB) at ambient conditions for 10 days. Fruits were recorded for observations on attributes such as postharvest cosmetic appeal (glossiness, face value and lenticel browning), physiological (ethylene evolution and respiration rate), biochemical (total soluble solids, total carotenoids and antioxidant activity) and overall acceptability, till the end of shelf life to draw a conclusion. Our results revealed that significant differences occurred for cosmetic appeal, physiological, biochemical and overall acceptability, in both manual and mechanically harvested fruits. Further, mechanical harvesting was found better to control loss in postharvest quality and thus will help growers in in getting enhanced returns.

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