ENHANCEMENT OF SHELF LIFE OF BRINJAL DURING STORAGE USING PRANIC AGRICULTURE PROTOCOLSrikanth N. Jois, K. Nagendra Prasad, Shalini N.S.Abstract Cost effective technologies to enhance the shelf life of agriculture produce is being researched worldwide. Pranic agriculture is an ancient science which uses Prana. It involves projection of prana to plants to enhance their growth. The present study aimed to understand application of pranic agriculture protocol on brinjal to enhance its shelf life during storage. The pranic treated brinjal was placed inside a pyramid shaped structure and treated with pranic energy. Non treated brinjal was placed inside rectangle shaped box and referred to as box control, while other brinjal placed as such was referred to as control. Storage characteristics including firmness, non-decay, color, gloss and non-shrivelling of brinjal was studied. The study was carried out at room temperature and data was recorded at intervals of 0, 6, 12 and 16 days. At the end of 16 days storage period, pranic treated brinjal had significant improvement in firmness (3.6±1.1), non-decay (4.1±1.1), color (3.5±1.0), gloss (3.2±1.1) and non-shrivelling (3.0±1.2) against control having values of 2.3±0.8, 2.6±0.8, 2.2±0.7, 2.0±0.6 and 1.9±0.7 respectively. This clearly shows that pranic agriculture could play a significant role in extending the shelf life of brinjal during storage. Further studies are needed to study the difference in their nutritional composition.
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