Studies on Effect of Pre-Harvest Fruit Bagging on Yield and Quality of Litchi (Litchi chinensis)

Diplip Barman, Shahida Choudhury, Suchibrata Chamuah

Abstract: The present investigation entitled "Studies on Effect of Pre-Harvest fruit Bagging on Yield and Quality of Litchi (Litchi chinensis)" was conducted at the Experimental Farm, Department of Horticulture, Assam Agricultural University, Jorhat During 2021-2022. The experiment was laid out in Randomized Block Design (RBD) with seven (7) treatments and three (3) replications. The treatments taken under the study were Control (T1), Non-woven Red (T2), Non-woven Blue (T3), Non-woven White (T4) Non-woven Green (T5), Non-woven Yellow (T6) and Polypropylene (T7). The maximum fruit weight (17.81g), fruit volume (20.00cc), fruit breadth (3.16cm), fruit length (3.56cm), aril weight (14.28g), peel weight (2.31g) and yield (0.44kg/bunch) were recorded in T4 (Non-woven White). Sun burn (8%) and fruit cracking (5.66%) percentage was observed lowest in T4. T4 was found the highest in case of total soluble solids (16.63oB), total sugar (15.35%) and ascorbic acid (23.65mg/100g) whereas, it recorded lowest in titratable acidity (0.63%). Deep red colour fruits of T7 (Polypropylene) was due to high amount of anthocyanin content (38.11mg/100g). During storage, highest shelf life was observed in T4 i.e. 10.50 days. Thus, it can be concluded that all the bags studied in the present experiment were found to be good both in qualitative and quantitative characters and also increased shelf life. But the most superior one among the selected bags was non-woven white bag in terms of morphological, biochemical and shelf life characteristics.

Keywords: Fruit bagging, litchi, yield, quality