Effect of Chemical Treatment and Wrapping Materials on Physico-Chemical Properties and Storage Life of Litchi Fruits (Litchi chinensis Sonn.) Cv. Shahi

Abstract

Litchi fruits have poor shelf life and losses its commercial value within two days after harvest. Several physiological and chemical changes take place which reduces the quality of fruits at room temperature. To overcome these problems, the experiment was conducted at Department of Horticulture, Institute of Agriculture Sciences, BHU, Varanasi to find out the effect of post-harvest application of hot water treatment and dipping in different concentrations of calcium nitrate (1 %, 1.5% and 2 %) for five minutes followed by fruit wrapping in newspaper and perforated polythene on physico-chemical changes and storage life of litchi (Litchi chinensis Sonn.) cv. Shahi. Fruits without treatment were considered as control. The experiment was conducted in a completely randomized design with three replications and observations were recorded on alternate days up to 13 days of storage. It was observed that fruits treated with 2.0% calcium nitrate in combination with perforated polythene bags recorded minimum losses due to spoilage percentage (12.15%), minimum decrease in fruit size (length- 4.97% and breadth- 5.49%) as compared to control on 11th day of storage. Significantly minimum pH (5.1) change and the best economic life up to 11th day of storage were recorded in perforated polythene wrapping with different concentration of calcium nitrate. Total Sugar Content (17.00%) was recorded significantly highest in polythene wrapping along with 1.5 and 2.0% calcium nitrate.  Less loss in volume (17.58%) was recorded in fruits treated with hot water along with polythene wrapping. Based on the above observations, it can be suggested that fruit dipping in calcium nitrate at 2.0 percent concentration with polythene wrapping (20% vent) gives better results for extending the storage life of litchi fruit at room temperature.