What is Post harvest Technology?
Causes of Post harvest losses
- Fruits last a little longer but they easily rot as well.
- Yellowing – Yellowing mostly happens to leafy vegetables. For fruits yellowing is a sign of ripening and later decay.
- Wilting – This is common to leafy vegetables.
- Softening – Softening is mostly prevalent to fruits and some leafy crops.
- Transportation – Lack of transportation is one factor that causes post harvest losses.
- Storage – Storage facilities plays a vital role for a success in vegetable endeavor.
- Adverse weather condition – Changing weather condition greatly affects your cropping pattern.
- Inefficiency of distribution – If your distribution channel is inefficient crop damage will be severe.Basis of Post harvest Technology
Vegetables contains 80 – 95 water.
- Leafy vegetable – The leaves wilt and turn yellow.
- Fruit vegetables – Ripens eventually become over ripe.
- Flower vegetables – The flowers opens.
- Modified stem – Produces new buds and sprouts.
- Leafy vegetables – Have bigger and more stomata on upper and lower surface, therefore have faster respiration and transpiration.
- Temperature – The most critical environmental factors that influences the deterioration rate of vegetables. Decrease in temperature decreases respiration, transpirations, microbial activities and insect growth.
- Relative humidity – The ratio or content of water vapor in the air.
- Gases in the atmosphere – Ideal content of air is 78% Nitrogen, 21% Oxygen, and 0.03% Carbon dioxide.
- Microorganisms and insects – Vegetables serves as food for microorganisms and insects. The more we keep away vegetables from them, the longer we can keep vegetables.
- Influence of Environmental Condition – The quality of your vegetable at or after harvest is affected by temperature, light, rainfall and other environmental factors.
- Temperature management – Avoid high temperature to lengthen the life span of your vegetables.
- Relative Humidity Management – You’ve to increase the relative humidity to 85%.
- Ensure good ventilation to dilute the concentration of ethylene – Ventilation is vital during storage and transport so that ethylene accumulation can be avoided.
- Don’t store ripening fruits with fresh vegetables in the same room – Separate fruit vegetables from the leafy ones.
- Inefficiency of distribution – If your distribution channel is inefficient crop damage will be severe.Basis of Post harvest Technology
- Handle vegetables carefully to avoid injury – Carefully handle your products with care to avoid crop injury.
- Sort the products and separate diseased vegetables – As I explained in number 4 above, you’ve to separate the diseased and injured products to avoid contamination to ;the other crops that are good.
- Adverse weather condition – Changing weather condition greatly affects your cropping pattern.
- Storage – Storage facilities plays a vital role for a success in vegetable endeavor.
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