Effect of post-harvest treatments on physiochemical characters during storage of two banana (Musa spp. L.) cv. Sabri and Amritasagar

Abstract

Various observations were made on external and internal fruit attributes, physio-chemical properties such as physiological weight loss, pulp to peel ratio, moisture content, dry matter content, pulp pH and shelf life. The results revealed that marked variations were found between two banana varieties in relation to various physical and biochemical characteristics. Peel color of Amritasagar changed faster than Sabri. The differences of physiological weight loss between two varieties were noticed to be significant during storage. The physiological weight loss was higher (21.35%) in Amrtasagar than Sabri (18.69%) at 12 th day. Pulp to peel ratio was noticed to be higher in Sabri (1.88 and 3.08) than Amritasagar (1.40 and 2.39) at 3rd and 9th days of storage. The moisture content was higher (71.04 %) in Amritasagar than Sabri (70.35 %). Also dry matter content was recorded higher (26.10%) in Sabri than Amritasagar (25.89%). Significant variation in pulp pH was observed between varieties during stotage. At 9th days of storage, higher pH value (6.36%) was found in Sabri than the pH value of (6.33%) in Amritasagar. Highly significant variations were observed on shelf life in two varieties of bananas. The shelf life (11.41 days) of Sabri was higher than that of Amritasagar (10.09 days). The maximum shelf life (13.0 days) was observed in the fruit treated with 400 ppm GA3 and the minimum (8.16 days) was recorded from control.