Post Harvest Management of Horticultural Crops

Factors affecting Postharvest quality

HARVEST FACTORS

Maturity at harvest stage is one of the main factors determining compositional quality and storage life of fruit, vegetables and flowers. All fruits, with a few exceptions, reach peak eating quality when fully ripened on the tree. However, since they cannot survive the post harvest handling system, they are usually picked/plucked mature but not ripe.

1. Stage of Harvest
2. Time of Harvest
3. Methods of Harvest


1. Stage of Harvest: arvesting can also affect final quality. For instance, when fruits and vegetables are harvested too late or too early in the season, overall taste, texture, and color may be compromised. Maturity at harvest is therefore an important factor that determines the final quality of the produce. Harvesting of fruits and vegetables at immature stage leads to both qualitative and quantitative losses. Immature fruits fail to ripen normally with low nutritive values and have inferior flavor quality when ripe. On the other hand over mature fruits are likely to become soft and mealy with insipid flavor soon after harvest.
Many vegetables, in particular leafy vegetables, and immature fruit-vegetables (such as cucumbers, green beans, peas, and okras), attain optimum eating-quality prior to reaching full maturity. This often results in delayed harvest, and consequently in produce of low quality.
Most of the cut flowers are harvested at the immature stage. Roses are harvested at tight bud stage/cracked bud stage than the half open or full open stage

2. Time of Harvest: is advisable to harvest produce when temperature is mild as high temperature causes rapid respiration rate and excessive water loss. The recommended time for harvest of fresh horticultural produce is early morning hours or late evening hours.
The amount of time between harvesting and delivery to a market also can damage the quality of the fruit, vegetable or flower. If fresh produce isn't processed quickly, it may also lose nutritional value.

3. Methods of Harvest: he method of harvesting (hand vs mechanical) can also have significant impact on the composition and post-harvest quality of fruits and vegetables. Sharp tools/ secateur /harvester/hand gloves/digger/vibrater/ trimmer/ any such items should always be used to detach the fruits/vegetable/flowers from the mother plant. Mechanical injuries (such as bruising, surface abrasions and cuts) can accelerate loss of water and vitamin C resulting in increased susceptibility to decay-causing pathogens.
Cut flowers with long stem have higher post harvest life than short stem because shorter stem have less carbohydrate reserves. While cutting cut flowers care should be taken to give slant cut and not to crush. Slant cut helps in facilitating the maximum surface area to absorb water at rapid rate during vase life.
Management of harvesting operations, whether manual or mechanical, can have a major impact on the quality of harvested fruits and vegetables. Proper management procedures include selection of optimum time to harvest in relation to produce maturity and climatic conditions, training and supervision of workers, and proper implementation of effective quality control.
Expedited and careful handling, immediate cooling after harvest, maintenance of optimum temperatures during transit and storage, and effective decay-control procedures are important factors in the successful post-harvest handling of fruits and vegetables. Attention must be paid to all of these factors, regardless of the method of harvesting used. These factors are nevertheless more critical in the case of mechanically harvested commodities.