No abstract

An experiment was conducted to study the effect of chlorine, packaging and storage conditions on quality and shelf life of tomato. Tomato treated with chlorine; packed in perforated (0.25%) polyethylene bag and kept at ambient (Temperature 20-25°C & relative humidity 70-90%) condition resulted in substantial reduction in losses caused by decay and weight loss. This treatment combination also considerably delayed compositional changes in TSS, total sugar, reducing sugar, vitamin-C, B-carotene, etc. Under this condition, shelf life of tomato had extended upto 17 days as compared to non-treated and kept in ambient condition without packaging or packed in gunny bag for 7 days only.

A survey was conducted to assess the postharvest practices and lossess of litchi during May to June 2008. Three litchi growing areas viz., Dinajpur, Ishurdi, and Natore, two urban areas, namely, Dhaka and Gazipur were selected for this study. Some indigenous postharvest practices were observed to follow in all the growing areas mostly by the growers and/or beparies those are involved in harvesting. These practices were as pre-cooling by keeping the harvested fruits under the shade of the trees, sorting based on damaged, pest infested, and disease infected fruits and so called believed cooling with litchi leaves during transportation. Nobody practices the grading of fruits. The usual packaging practices were observed mainly with bamboo baskets lining with litchi leaves and covering with gunny sheets. None of the aradthdars involved in packaging .The postharvest losses were reported mainly at harvesting (8.0%), handling from orchard to selling point by the growers and beparies involved in harvesting (4.61%) and after buying to consumption by the consumers (7.5%). Considering the channels involved in litchi marketing, the growers and/or beparies engaged in harvesting had the highest percent of losses (16% in Dinajpur, 12% in Ishurdi, and 11 % in Natore) followed by the consumers (7.5%). Keywords: Litchi; harvesting practices; mode of packaging and transportation and postharvest losses. DOI: 10.3329/bjar.v35i3.6451Bangladesh J. Agril. Res. 35(3) : 439-451

An experiment was conducted to assess the influence of edible coatings on postharvest quality of mandarin during 20 days of ambient storage. Sorted fruits were washed; fruit surface water was removed and then coated with 100% liquid paraffin wax, 0.5% chitosan, 1.0% chitosan, 1.5% chitosan, and 100% coconut oil. After coating, fruit surface was air dried and kept at ambient condition (25±3 °C, 60–70% RH) and analyzed periodically for weight loss, respiration rate, firmness, decay incidence, TSS, pH, ascorbic acid content, and sensory properties. The results revealed that coconut oil had immense effect on the reduction of the weight loss and respiration rate and preserved firmness, total soluble solids, ascorbic acid, total sugar and reducing sugar and no incidence of moulds & their growth was found up to 16 days of storage.Int. J. Agril. Res. Innov. & Tech. 8 (1): 18-25, June, 2018

A study was conducted at Fruit Research Farm and Postharvest Technology Laboratory of Horticulture Research Centre, Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute during the period from October 2009 to February 2010 to determine the maturity indices of ber. The ber variety BARI Kul-2 was selected for conducting the study. Ber fruits were tagged at fruit setting stage and harvested at 90, 100, 110, 120 days after fruit set (treatments). The physicochemical characters like fruit weight and size, specific gravity, TSS (%), sugar (%), acidity (%), pulpstone ratio, TSS-acid ratio, sugar-acid ratio as well as subjective sensory attributes like fruit colour and texture, and storage traits like storage life, physiological weight loss (%), ripening status and decay, browning and shriveling (%) of harvested fruits were evaluated for determining the proper stage of commercial maturity. The fruit weight, TSS (%), pulp-stone ratio, TSS/acid ratio, sugar-acid ratio and specific gravity of BARI Kul-2 were found 24.33g, 15.60, 15.66, 39.72, 16.14 and 0.98, respectively, at 110 days after fruit set. Considering all the physical and chemical characters matching with subjective parameters, fruits of BARI Kul-2 was found commercially mature after 110 days of fruit set when the fruits turned into light greenish yellow to greenish yellow colour and specific gravity less than 1.00.