Sathappan C.T., Kandasamy R. and Sharvesh S.
Abstract
Papaya (Carica papaya L.) is one of the major fruit crops of India, which is the fifth most important fruit crop after banana in India. Red Lady is a high yielding dwarf variety of papaya, best suited and cultivated around Tamil Nadu. Although, Red Lady has gained much popularity in the domestic and export markets, there is always a difficulty in reaching the consumer hands with the good quality. So far, little attention has been paid to investigate the effect of pre-harvest chemicals on post-harvest quality of papaya. An experiment was conducted at a farmerâs field, Ammampalayam, Attur taluk, Salem district during the year 2019-2020 in order to evaluate the effect of pre-harvest treatments to enhance the post-harvest quality and Shelf life of papaya fruits. Papaya plants were sprayed with NAA @ 100 ppm, Potassium chloride @ 1.5%, Potassium nitrate @ 1.5% (as source of potassium), Calcium chloride @ 1.5%, Calcium nitrate @ 1.5% and Calcium sulphate @ 1.5% (as source of calcium) and the combination of NAA @ 100 ppm with potassium and calcium sources at 1.5% were sprayed at 21 days after flower anthesis onto the fruits. Control was sprayed with plain water. Spray applications were repeated every two weeks for six times. Results revealed that the quality parameters of fruits, viz., fruit firmness (kg cm-2), physiological loss (%), spoilage loss (%), percentage of marketable fruits (%) and Shelf life (Days) of the papaya were increased considerably with CaCl2 @ 1.5%. Therefore, spraying with 1.5% calcium chloride to the fruits is suitable for better post-harvest quality.