Effect of chemical coating and other treatments on physico-chemical changes during storage of Litchi fruits (Litchi chinensis Sonn.) cv. Deshi

Abstract

Fruits of litchi are highly perishable and losses its commercial value within two days at room temperature. Due to rapid skin discolouration. The experiment was conducted at Department of Horticulture, Institute of Agriculture Sciences, BHU., Varanasi to find out the effect of post-harvest application of dipping in different concentrations of CaNO3 (1 %, 1.5% and 2 %) and hot water treatment for five minutes followed by fruit wrapping in newspaper and polythene on physico-chemical changes during storage of litchi (Litchi chinensis Sonn.) cv. Deshi. Fruits without treatment were considered as control. The experiment was conducted in completely randomized design with three replications and observations were recorded on alternate day up to 13 days of storage. It was observed that fruits showed minimum reduction in size in respect of length and width (4.03 & 4.26 % respectively) in treatment (T10) with 2.0% calcium nitrate with perforated polythene wrapping (T10) and maximum reduction (12.77 and 12.57% respectively) in untreated fruits (T11). Minimum reduction of volume (15.00) was observed in polythene wrapping treated (T6 and T7) fruits. Minimum pH (4.9) was observed in calcium nitrate (2.0%) + polythene wrapping (T10) on 11th days. It was observed that significantly maximum quantity of ascorbic acid 34.85 mg/100g, 35.00mg/100 g and 35.00mg/100 g was recorded in T9, T8 and T10 treatments respectively on 11th day of storage. Thus, it can be suggested that fruit dipping in calcium nitrate at 2.0 per cent with polythene wrapping (20% vent) is better for increasing the storage life of litchi at room temperature.