Effect of Different Post-harvest Treatments on Shelf Life and Quality of Sweet Orange (Citrus sinensis Osbeck.) Fruit#

Abstract

Background: Several post-harvest treatments are used for extension of storage life of sweet orange fruits. The present investigation was carried out at Department of Horticulture, MPKV, Rahuri, during 2019-20 and 2020-21 in order to study the effect of different packaging materials and storage conditions on quality and shelf life of fresh fruit of sweet orange cv. Phule Mosambi. Methods: The experiment consists of six types of packaging materials viz., P1- Plyethylene bags (150 gauge), P2- PE paper coating bags, P3- LDPE (200 gauge), P4- Cotton bags, P5- Aluminum foil bags, P6- Nano silver-based bags and untreated control under two storage conditions viz., S1- Room temperature (RT) and S2- Cold storage (CS, 12±2°C and 90% RH) in Factorial Completely Randomized Design (FCRD) with three replications. Result: The data revealed that, the sweet orange fruits packed in nano silver-based bags and stored at cold storage i.e. P6S2 recorded significantly lowest PLW (7.81%) and spoilage (4.18%) with highest firmness (10.87 N), juice content (46.59%) and overall acceptability (8.73) at the end of storage life of 60 days.