Improved harvest and desapping practices affect mango fruit quality along the supply chains

This study was aimed at evaluating the impact of improved harvest and handling practices including careful fruit harvesting along with 4-6 inches long pedicels, de-stemming and de-sapping in 0.5% lime solution, 2-3 min dip and washing in tap water, on the fruit quality of mango along domestic supply chains in Pakistan compared with traditional harvest and handling system prevailing in local mango industry. Six domestic supply chains in two mango cultivars Sindhri and Samar Bahisht Chaunsa were monitored in this regard. The impact assessments were made on the basis of performance against sap burn, skin browning, lenticels spots, rots and physical damage. The effect on fruit skin color and firmness was also studied. Significant interaction of skin browning, sap burn injury, rots and physical damage was found with the practices adopted at farm level. These problems were found to start from farm (origin) and significantly increase along the supply chains depending upon the procedures adopted for produce harvest and handling. The fruits passed through improved practice had significantly better quality at retail with less skin browning (39.17% in improved vs 58.33% in traditional), low sap burn damage (15.83% vs 73.34%), smaller extent of rots (22.50% vs 68.33%) and physical damages (14.17% vs 34.17%). Non significant differences were found among the analyzed practices regarding fruit skin color, firmness and lenticel spots. Overall, the improved harvest and lime desapping technology showed potential as a best practice for the better management of mango fruit quality along the domestic supply chains.