Author(s):

Md. Shamsher Ahmad, MW Siddiqui, Md. Abu Nayyer and MA Anwer

Abstract: The litchi cultivation is confined to a few states of India where Bihar tops the list with > 70% of total production. Being highly perishable in nature, it becomes unmarketable within 2-3 days due to pericarp browning. Postharvest sulphuring process is the only commercially exploited treatment to prevent pericarp browning, however, it is cumbersome to perform and it requires sulphuring room or chamber and pre cooling facility. An alternative method has been developed using grape gourd. In this method, grape gourd is kept inside the polyethylene liner in packaged litchi. It was observed that litchi fruit with or without stalk packed with grape gourd and liner maintained a shelf life of 5-7 days at ambient conditions without pericarp browning. Initially red peel color of litchi was bleached, but regained slowly with the passage of time. Minimum weight loss was observed in sulphited litchi (commercial process) followed by fruits having grape gourd and liner. Minimum disease incidence was also observed in Sulphited Litchi followed by grape gourd and liner. TSS was increased in all treatments. However, minimum increase was observed in sulphited litchi followed by litchi packed with grape gourd and liner. Based on the results, it can be suggested that in-package sulphuring of litchi fruits using grape gourd and liner may be an alternative to commercial sulphuring process.

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