Browsing by Author "Ghebreslassie, Biniam M."

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Postharvest maintenance of the shelf life and quality attributes of banana and papaya.
(2003) Ghebreslassie, Biniam M.; Bower, John Patrick.; Bertling, Isa.
Banana and papaya are two commonly grown fruits of the tropical regions of the world. Like most tropical climacteric fruits, these fruits have a short shelf life and deteriorate rapidly after harvest. This becomes more pronounced in tropical areas where cold chain management practices are poor and the ability environmental control is limited. To extend the shelf life with maintained quality of the fruits and to investigate the effect of various postharvest treatments a study was conducted on banana cv. Williams and on papaya cv. Hortus Gold. The treatments included storage in different packaging materials such as micro perforated polypropylene bags (MPB), Micro perforated polypropylene bags with ethylene absorbent (MPB+K), macro perforated polypropylene bags coated with anti mist coating (PP), fruit waxing, gibberellic acid (GA3) and indole butyric acid (IBA) applications. Comparison was made against untreated fruits. Banana fruits were held at 12, 15 and 22°C, while papaya fruit were held at 5.5, 7, 10 and 22°C. Percentage weight loss (PWL), firmness change, visual colour development and respiration rate were evaluated on a weekly basis during the storage period. Selected quality attributes such as total soluble solids (TSS), pH, total chlorophyll, total carotenoids and organic acids for banana and TSS, pH, titratable acid (TA) and sugar:acid ratio for papaya were analyzed at the end of the storage period. PWL, softening, colour development and respiration rate increased significantly (P