Postharvest
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In agriculture, postharvest handling is the stage of crop production immediately following harvest, including cooling, cleaning, sorting and packing. The instant a crop is removed from the ground, or separated from its parent plant, it begins to deteriorate. Post-harvest treatment largely determines final quality, whether a crop is sold for fresh consumption, or used as an ingredient in a processed food product.
Contents |
[edit] Goals
The most important goals of post-harvest handling are keeping the product cool, to avoid moisture loss and slow down undesirable chemical changes, and avoiding physical damage such as bruising, to delay spoilage.[1] Sanitation is also an important factor, to reduce the possibility of pathogens that could be carried by fresh produce, for example, as residue from contaminated washing water.
After the field, post-harvest processing is usually continued in a packing house. This can be a simple shed, providing shade and running water, or a large-scale, sophisticated, mechanized facility, with conveyor belts, automated sorting and packing stations, walk-in coolers and the like. In mechanized harvesting, processing may also begin as part of the actual harvest process, with initial cleaning and sorting performed by the harvesting machinery.
Initial post-harvest storage conditions are critical to maintaining quality. Each crop has an optimum range for storage temperature and humidity. Also, certain crops cannot be effectively stored together, as unwanted chemical interactions can result. Various methods of high-speed cooling, and sophisticated refrigerated and atmosphere-controlled environments, are employed to prolong freshness, particularly in large-scale operations.
Regardless of the scale of harvest, from domestic garden to industrialized farm, the basic principles of post-harvest handling for most crops are the same: handle with care to avoid damage (cutting, crushing, bruising), cool immediately and maintain in cool conditions, and cull (remove damaged items).
[edit] Post harvest freshness
Once harvested, vegetable and fruit are subject to an active process of decay. Numerous biochemical processes (postharvest physiology) are continuously changing the original composition of the crop until it becomes no longer marketable.
The period before drastic change has occurred is defined as the time of "post harvest freshness".
Since freshness is an important factor in product quality, its evaluation should rest upon objective methods, but until recently only sensory tests or mechanical and colorimetric, (optical) criteria have been used. A recent study attempted to discover a biochemical marker and fingerprint methods to serve as a freshness index.[2]
[edit] Postharvest physiology
Postharvest physiology is the scientific study of the physiology of living plant tissues after they have denied further nutrition by picking. It has direct applications to postharvest handling in establishing the storage and transport conditions that best prolong freshness.
An example of the importance of the field to post-harvest handling is the discovery that ripening of fruit can be delayed, and thus their storage prolonging, by preventing fruit tissue respiration. This insight allowed scientists to bring to bear their knowledge of the fundamental principles and mechanisms of respiration, leading to post-harvest storage techniques such as cold storage, gaseous storage, and waxy skin coatings. Another well known example is the finding that ripening may be brought on by treatment with ethylene.
[edit] References
[edit] Notes
[edit] Bibliography
[edit] External links
- Postharvest Technology Research
- Postharvest Handling
- POSTHARVEST BIOLOGY AND TECHNOLOGY
- Writtle Postharvest Unit; Research & Training
- Postharvest Technology Research & Information Center
- Dixie, G.; Horticultural Marketing. FAO, Rome, 2005
- Lopez-Camelo, Andres. Manual for the preparation and sale of fruits and vegetables – from farm to market. FAO, Rome 2004
- FAO Information Network on Post-harvest Operations INPho
- Yazeed Postharvest Technology
