BONGA UNIVERSITY COIIEGE OF

AGRECULTURE AND NATURAL RESOURCE.

DEPARTMENTOFHORTICULTURE

Title: REVIEW on NON CHEMICAL APPROACHES for

POST HARVEST QUALITY MANAGEMENT of FRUITS
and VEGETABLES
 INTRODUCTION
• Fruits and vegetables is one of the most important and fast growing sub-
sectors of the food processing sector,
• They are an essential component of some of the human nutritional
requirements like vitamins, minerals and organic acids.
• The postharvest losses of fruits and vegetables stand at 20-40% in the
average.
• The use of synthetic chemicals on harvested fresh produce is becoming
more difficult to human health risks
• Therefore, the interest in “non-conventional” methods for postharvest
decay control of fruits and vegetables has become increasingly
important.
 OBJECTIVE
1.1.1. General Objective
To review non chemical approach on postharvest quality management
of fruits and vegetables

1.1.2. Specific Objective

To effectively control and minimize the growth of spoilage-causing
microorganisms, such as fungi, bacteria, and molds, without the use of
synthetic chemical agents

To provide environmentally sustainable and safe alternatives to

traditional chemical-based methods for post-harvest quality
management.
 LITRATURE REVIEW
2.1. Scope of the Review
• Fruits and vegetables provide an abundant and inexpensive

source of energy, body-building nutrients, vitamins and minerals

2.1.1. Post-harvest Quality of Fruits and Vegetables

• Postharvest fruits and vegetables remain physiologically active

after harvesting.

• Respiration, which is the primary metabolism, can affect and

constrain the life span of fruit and vegetable products, as well as

 LITRATURE REVIEW
 Most fruits and vegetables are high in water content (between
65% and 96%),
 so they very easily lose weight due to transpiration of water
during storage.
 This leads to a deterioration in the quality of fruits and
vegetables
• All of these result in a decline in the quality, nutrition and safety
of postharvest fruits and vegetables
 LITRATURE REVIEW
• Both quantitative and qualitative losses occur in
horticultural crops between harvest and consumption.
• Our goal is to minimize these losses, and to do so we
must:

1) understand the biological (internal) and

environmental (external) factors involved in postharvest
deterioration
 LITRATURE REVIEW
 Biological (internal) causes of deterioration include respiration
rate,
 Ethylene production and action,
 Rates of compositional changes (associated with quality, color,
texture, flavor, and nutritive value),
 Mechanical injuries, water stress, sprouting and rooting,
physiological disorders, and pathological breakdown
 LITRATURE REVIEW
 The rate of biological deterioration depends on several environmental
(external) factors,
 Including temperature,

 Relative humidity,

 Air velocity, and

 Atmospheric composition (concentrations of oxygen,

 Carbon dioxide, and ethylene),

 Sanitation procedures.

 All these cause of loss of post harvest quality of fruit and vegetables
2.1.2. Factors Affecting Post Harvest Quality of Fruits and
Vegetables

• Can be lost during different stages of agricultural activities mostly

during storage by affecting different factors such as biological,
chemical or physical damage.
• Biological damage by micro-organisms,
• Chemical damage through rancidity development and flavor
changes and
• Physical damage through crushing, shrinkage, wilting
2.1.2. Factors Affecting Post Harvest Quality of Fruits and
Vegetables

• Generally factors influencing post harvest losses of maize grains

categorized in to two: abiotic and biotic factors.
• The major abiotic factors include temperature, moisture content
and other Preharvest
• The other major cause of post harvest quality losses of fruits and
vegetable is living things that includes different insects and pests,
micro-organisms (fungi and bacteriaInfestation
 2.1.3. Common handling techniques to slow down post harvest
losses of fruits and vegetables

• Proper post harvest practices like proper drying of the produce

after harvest,
• Proper agricultural activity chain that should be taken starting
from harvesting to consumption and proper storage management
keep the produce from damage and loss.
• Storage facilities should be thoroughly cleaned before the new
crop is stored
 2.1.3. Common handling techniques to slow down post harvest
losses of fruits and vegetables

• Ideally, grains should be cooled after drying and maintained at 1°

to 4 °C for the duration of storage
• The area around the storage also should be kept clean and free of
vegetation (Holscher, 2000)
 2.2. Non Chemical Approaches for Post Harvest Quality
Management

 Heat treatment
 Hot water dips
 Vapor heat
 Using essential oils of some medicinal plants on fruits and
vegetables
 Electromagnetic field treatment
 Using the microbial antagonists
 Using controlled and modified atmosphere packaging

• Using edible coating

 Heat Treatment
• Heat treatments applied to fruit and vegetables in several ways:
• Hot water dips, vapor heat, hot air dry and hot water rinsing and
brushing
• Hot air and hot water treatments are practical, environmentally-
friendly and non-chemical heating methods,
• Which are widely used for postharvest insect control and quality
preservation in agricultural products of fruits and vegetables.
• Hot water was more effective than hot air in treating fruits.
• The advantages of no residues, easy to control and small
equipment investment, hot air and hot water heating is
considered to be a potential non-chemical method for
pasteurizing and disinfecting fruits (liu et al., 2012).
• Reduce chilling injury in many wounds of fruits
 2.2.2. Hot Water Dips
• Hot water dips are effective for fungal pathogen control,
• Because fungal spores and latent infections are either on the
surface or in the first few cell layers under the peel of the fruit or
vegetable
• The advantages achieved by hot water treatment on fruits
include;
• Slowing the ripening of climacteric fruits to obtain longer shelf
life,
• Reducing the sensitivity of subtropical fruits to low temperature,
• Thereby allowing the longer storage of these fruits at a
temperature which would normally cause chilling injury,
• Reducing post harvest rots by either inactivation of pathogenic or
enhancement of host resistance,
• Controlling insect pests as a quarantine treatment
 2.2.1.2. Vapor Heat
• Vapor heat is a method of heating fruit with air saturated with
water vapor at temperatures of 40–50°C to kill insect eggs and
larvae as a quarantine treatment before fresh market shipment.
• Vapor heat treatment was mainly for insect control, while hot dry
air has been used for fungal and insect control
 2.2.2. Approaches of using essential oils of some medicinal
plants on fruits and vegetables

• Essential oils are natural antioxidant and antimicrobial lipid

substances extracted from plants.
• They are volatile, natural, complex compounds characterized by a
strong odor and are formed by aromatic plants as secondary
metabolites and
• They positively affected on postharvest quality factors including
total soluble solids, terrible acidity, anthocyanin, carbohydrate
content and ph value
• Application of essential oil is a very attractive method for
controlling postharvest diseases
 2.2.3. Electromagnetic Field Treatment Approach on Fruits
and Vegetables

• Inhibition of microorganisms when placed in electromagnetic

fields and inhibitory effect on microbial population (lipiec et al.,
2004).
• The effects of electromagnetic field wave at different intensities
and periods of exposure on spoilage fungi isolated from cashew,
apple, cucumber, carrot and African star apple
 2.2.4. Basic Approaches for Using the Microbial
Antagonists

• Basic approaches have been reported for using the microbial

antagonists against the postharvest diseases of fruits and
vegetables (sharma et al., 2009

• In the application process, the antagonists are sprayed directly

onto the surfaces of the fruits and vegetables or are applied by
dipping (sharma et al., 2009; irtwange, 2006; barkai-golan, 2001).

• More effective than the pre harvest approach for cabbage, citrus
(long et al, 2007), apples (morals et al., 2008; zhang et al., 2009),
peach (mandal et al., 2007), banana (lassois et al., 2008), mango
(kefialew and ayalew, 2008) and tomato (Zhao et al., 2008).
 2.2.5. Approaches of using controlled and modified
atmosphere packaging
• Refers to the technique of sealing actively respiring produce in
polymeric film packages to control or modify the o2 and co2 levels
within the package atmosphere.
• In addition to atmosphere modification, vastly improves moisture
retention
• Reduce exposure to pathogens and contaminants (bakkali et al.,
2008).
 2.2.6. Approaches of using edible coating on
quality of fruits and vegetables
• Edible coating materials like chitosan, which is a soluble form of
chitin, and its derivatives,
• Have plant protective and antifungal properties. Chitosan in
aqueous solution at concentrations of 0.25, 0.5, 1.0 and 2.0%
(w/v) has been used