Chapter 4 - Disinfecting agents for controlling fruits and vegetable diseases after harvest

Abstract

Fresh fruits and vegetables are susceptible to attack by spoilage and pathogenic microorganisms if not handled correctly during or after harvest. Postharvest disinfection of commodities is a curative operation to inhibit fungal pathogens and human bacterial pathogens and therefore enhance food safety. Deterioration of fruits and vegetables can only be prevented by adopting the inhibition of postharvest pathogens and thus ensuring prolonged storage life. This chapter comprises factual, chemical, and administrative context on some of the essential sanitizers existing for the practice nowadays. These include chlorine, chlorine dioxide, ozone, ethanol, hydrogen peroxide, organic acids, and electrolyzed water. A broad description about postharvest application, disinfection mechanism, and regulatory guidelines of these sanitizers has been given in this chapter. This chapter concludes that disinfectant is a vital tool to reduce postharvest decay in fruits and vegetables. In some conditions, sanitization is a pretreatment to the productive employment of postharvest methodology. This chapter clears the controversial, unjustified, and bad reputation of the use of chemical disinfectants as they leave no or much lesser amounts of remnants of the nonhazardous level. The world may consider the use of chemical disinfectants in an eco-friendly way.