Response of postharvest treatments on shelf life, biochemical and microbial quality of banana variety Red Banana

Abstract: The popular Red Banana variety faces transportation challenges and has a limited postharvest shelf life due to its ripe fruits being less resistant and being a climacteric fruit. This study aims to prolong the shelf life of Red Banana fruits through different postharvest treatments. Fruit bunches of Red Banana were harvested at the mature green stage, separated into hands, precooled, subjected to 12 treatments and stored in corrugated fibre board boxes till the end of shelf life under ambient conditions. Fruits coated with 10% bee wax + 0.5% clove oil (T₄), fruits subjected to coating with 10% bee wax and packaging with potassium permanganate (T₉) and fruits dipped in hot water at 50 °C for 10 min. and packaging with potassium permanganate (T₁₁) registered highest shelf life of 18.67 days. The highest TSS of 26.33°Brix was noticed in fruits stored with potassium permanganate (T₈) after 12.67 days of storage and lowest titratable acidity of 0.19% and the highest sugar-acid ratio of 79.76 was noticed in control (T₁₂) after 11.33 days of storage. Moreover, the highest vitamin C content (7.74 mg 100 g?¹), total sugar content (18.47%), reducing sugar content (15.49%), total carotenoid content (24.13 µg 100 g^-1) was noticed in treatment T₇ (hot water dipping at 50 °C for 10 min.) after 17.67 days, T₁₀ (coating with 40% aloe vera extract and packaged with potassium permanganate) after 13.33 days, T₄ (coating with 10% bee wax + 0.5% clove oil) after 18.67 days and T₉ (coating with 10% bee wax + potassium permanganate) after 18.67 days of storage respectively. Furthermore, the lowest fungal and bacterial count was observed in treatments T₂ (dipping in 30ppm sodium hypochlorite solution), T₇ (hot water dipping at 50 °C for 10 min.), T₉ (coating with 10% bee wax + potassium permanganate) and T₁₀ (coating with 40% aloe vera extract + potassium permanganate).