UNIVERSITY OF KARACHI

AGRICULTURE AND AGRIBUSINESS

MANAGEMENT

Course Title: Post-Harvest( LAB)

Course # 615
Submitted By:
RidaAdil
Rubab Fatima
Fizza Rizwan
Submitted To:
Sir Muttalib
 Determination of Shrivelling, Decay Index, Overall Quality
and Marketable Percentage of Fruits and Vegetables
Aims and Objective:

Enable students to visually quantify development of shrivelling and disease

incidence and relate them with overall quality and marketability of fruits and
vegetables

Material required:

1. Fruits and vegetables with varying degree of diseases, bruises, and

shrivelling signs
2. Score cards for shrivelling, disease incidence and surface blemishes
Procedure/ activity:
1. Take each fruit in hand and evaluate it for each of following parameter one-by-
one.
2. Score each fruit for visible signs of skin shrivelling by following the following
score sheet.
Skin Shrivelling
1. No sign of shrivelling (normal)
2. <5% of surface area shrivelled (trace)
3. 5-20% of surface area shrivelled (slight)
4. 21-50% surface area shrivelled (moderate)
5. >50% surface area shrivelled (severe)

Visually inspect fruit surface for signs of fungal decay. Give each fruit a score
based on the percentage of surface area infected with fungal mold. Express the
score as fungal decay index. A reference scale for fungal decay index (Babalar et
al., 2007) is given below.
Decay Index
1. No decay on surface (normal)
2. <5% of surface decayed (trace)
3. 5-20% of surface decayed (slight)
4. 21-50% surface decayed (moderate)
 5. >50% surface decayed (severe)
(Babalar et al., 2007)

Visually observe percentage of fruit surface area decayed, bruised, shrunken and
adversely affected and give score from 1 to 5 as described earlier by Babalar et al.
(2007). Express the score as ‘Overall Quality Index’.

Overall Quality Index

1. 50% surface area affected (unacceptable)
2. 20-50% surface area affected (bad)
3. 5-20% surface area affected (acceptable)
4. <5% surface area affected (good)
5. No sign of decay, shrinkage, or adverse effect on
surface area (excellent)
(Babalar et al., 2007)

Categorize fruits into marketable (average size, healthy and blemish free) and non-
marketable fruits as earlier described by Fernandez et al. (2002) as per following
score sheet. Present the results in percentage with respect to total fruits.

Marketable Fruit Percentage

1. Average size, healthy and blemish-free (marketable fruit)
2. Small size, disease, or blemished fruits (unmarketable fruit)
(Fernandez et al., 2002)

Marketable fruits can also be referred as top-quality fruits whereas unmarketable

fruits can further be classified into ‘downgrade quality’ (fruits having fair
percentage of decay and blemish signs with marginal sale value) and
‘unmarketable fruit’ (severally diseased and blemished with no sale value).
*Progress Chart
Fruit Open Environment

No Shrivelling Decay Overall Marketable

Of Score Index Quality %
Days Score

STRAWBERRY
01 02 01 05 01
02 03 04 02 02
03 05 05 01 02

Vegetable Humid Chamber ( without injury)

No Shrivelling Decay Overall Marketable

Of Score Index Quality %
Days Score

STRAWBERRY
01 01 01 05 01
02 04 03 03 02
03 05 05 02 02
 Vegetable Humid Chamber ( within injury)

No Shrivelling Decay Overall Marketable

Of Score Index Quality %
Days Score

STRAWBERRY
01 03 04 03 01
02 04 05 02 01
03 05 05 01 02

*Picture.
 Techniques To Increase Shelf Life Of Strawberry

Strawberries are highly susceptible to bruising and post-harvest decay and low
levels of calcium exacerbate the problem, reducing shelf life. Calcium helps
improve fruit firmness, prolongs keeping quality and extends shelf life.

1. Store fresh strawberries on the countertop.

2. Keep strawberries in the fridge
3. You can freeze strawberries
4. Put in Can.
5. Coated it with chemical treatment( Chitosan, a high molecular weight cationic
polysaccharide, theoretically should be an ideal preservative coating material for
strawberries.).
6. Starch base coating ( Edible coatings can be made from food materials such as
cellulose derivatives, proteins, starch, and other polysaccharides (regarded as
GRAS). Starch is the most usually used agricultural raw material for biodegradable
films)
7. Botanical coatings ( Aloe vera (AV), a novel edible coating was used for fruit
storage).

Increasing shelf life of strawberries (Fragariassp) by using a banana starch-

chitosan-Aloe vera gel composite edible coating

Strawberries are among the most consumed fruits in the world, however, they are
highly susceptible to both microbial and fungal contamination during storage. In
this study, we used composite films made from banana starch-chitosan and Aloe
vera gel (AV gel) at different AV gel concentrations. Our results show that AV gel
inclusion can significantly reduce fungal decay, increasing strawberries shelf life
up to 15 day of storage at the highest AV gel concentration (20%), while
maintaining their physicochemical properties, such as colour and firmness. Weight
loss was reduced 5% with respect of the uncoated fruit. Our results can be
attributed to the limited water vapour transfer allowed by the edible coating, this is
the result of the crosslinking effect of the different AV gel and starch molecules
that allows a more controlled decay of the strawberries in commercial storage
conditions.

GRAPHICAL REPRESENTATION:
SHRIVELLING SCORE:
6

4
SHRIVELLING OPEN ENVI-
RONMENT
3 SHRIVELLING HUMID CHAMBER
(without Injury)
SHRIVELLING HUMID CHAMBER
2 (without Injury)2

0
DAY 1 DAY 2 Day 3

Decay Index

DECAY INDEX:OPEN EN-

4 VIROMENT

3 DECAY INDEX: HUMID

CHAMBER (without injury)

2
DECAY INDEX: HUMID
CHAMBER (injury)
1

0
DAY 1 DAY 2 DAY 3
 OverallQualityScore:

4
Overall Quality Score: OPEN
ENVIORNMENT
3 Overall Quality Score: HUMID
CHAMBER (without Injury)
Overall Quality Score: HUMID
2 CHAMBER ( Injury)

0
DAY 1 DAY 2 DAY 3

Marketable %
2.5

1.5 Marketable % OPEN ENVI-

RONMENT
Marketable % HUMID CHAMBER
(without Injury)
1 Marketable % HUMID CHAMBER
(without Injury)2

0.5

0
DAY 1 DAY 2 DAY 3
2-Refractometer test: Apple juice

Introduction;
Soluble (dissolved) sugar (or solids) content (SSC or °Brix) is a measure of
sweetness.
• In fruits, the typical range of soluble sugar content is 5-15%, while in vegetables
it is typically 5%
% soluble sugar is measured using a refractometer.

The refractometer consists of a measuring glass prism where the sample is placed,
covered by a shutter or illuminator cover. When light passes through a sample
containing
Dissolved solids (such as sugar), it is interrupted, slowed down, and bent or
“refracted”.

Temperature affects the reading (increasing the SSC by 0.5% for every 5°C or
10°F).

Materials Required:
Refractometer
Distilled water
Plastic pipette or spoon to put sample on glass measuring surface.
Juice.

Procedure:
Open the plastic cowl and ensure the glass prism is easy and now no longer
scratched.
If now no longer easy, positioned some drops of distilled water at the glass, shake
the water off, and
Contact the threshold of the glass with a tender easy material to wick the closing
water off.
Place few drops of pattern on glass measuring floor the use of plastic pipette or
spoon.
Replace cowl. If trapped air exists, lightly press down on cowl.
Look thru the eyepiece whilst preserving the refractometer as much as a herbal
mild or
Incandescent mild source. Adjust the focal point via way of means of twisting the
eyepiece.
There is a scale inner showing % sugar.
Read in which the shadow boundary or assessment line (distinction among blue
and white
Areas) crosses the scale. Record the % SSC or Brix value.
Clean among every analyzing with distilled water, which must be 0% SSC

Observation:

Result: Sugar content in apple juice was 14 brix.