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Harvesting, Handling and Transportation
Harvesting, Handling and Transportation
After harvest, grading is required to fetch better prices for the produce. Usually,
grading is not a common practice in our country but with increasing quality consciousness
among consumers, grading is becoming an important unit operation. It includes removal of
infected, deformed and rotten fruits and separation of fruits in different categories based on
physical and maturity parameters, and market demand.
Certain pre and post harvest treatments enhance the shelf life of the perishable
commodity. Pre-harvest treatments are mainly meant to control infection/disease before and
after harvest. Post-harvest treatments are performed to increase maturity period of harvested
fruits. Chemical, thermal and radiation treatments are commonly performed to lengthen the
ripening processes. Another protective measure is wax coating.
Transportation contributes the most (15%) to the total postharvest losses. It varies
from 6 to 31% depending upon the fruit and variety. In order to reduce the losses, packaging
of fruits is essential. Type and material of packing differs for fruits and cultivars. Commonly
used materials are bamboo baskets, wooden crate, mud pots, jute bags, corrugated fibre-board
(CFB) boxes, card-board boxes, corrugated paper boxes, polyethylene bags, etc. Some
cushioning materials used are grass, stems, leaves, paper spacing, saw dust, pulp tray, tissue
paper, newspaper and straw. CFB boxes are suitable for packaging citrus fruits. Wrapping
with paper and poly bags retards the respiration rat thus increases the shelf life. Replacement
of wooden boxes is also being considered due to excessive deforestation and for maintaining
the ecological balance.
Transportation in India is mainly done by rail or road, occasionally by air and water
ways. Mode of transport are rail cars and trucks. As these means are not exclusively meant
for fruits/perishables, losses are increased. Still today, rail coaches used are close
compartments, without low temperature facilities, and proper ventilation. Similarly, there is a
scarcity of refrigerated vans for road transport. Advance packaging methods have
considerably reduced transportation losses but it is still a major cause of losses. Refrigerated
rail or road vans can be a better mode of transportation than the present rail or road cars
which are jerk prone, causing damage to the commodities. Hand loads and bullock carts also
reduce the losses but can only be exploited to a limited extent.
Storage
Storage of fruits is required to avoid glut in market during production peak and to
make the fruits available throughout the year. Fruits are perishable and difficult to store, thus
leading to considerable losses. The most successful methods of fruit storage are as follows: