P.A. Patel and H.K. Panchal
Abstract
Fruits contain essential nutritional and economic aspects. Fruits mature through a series of molecular and physiological events. Ripening of climacteric fruits is a highly regulated process in which signal transduction occurs in a cascade, leading to gene activation, enzyme synthesis, and physiological changes induced by enzymatic actions. Various chemical-based artificial ripeners are used to accelerate fruit ripening process and post-harvest handling. These chemicals showed several health issues on human health hence precaution or control should be needed. The use of ethylene for ripening of fruits is not harmful for human consumption although it is quite expensive since it is produced by fuel cracking. Several microorganisms can produce ethylene in good quantity and we can use it to ripen various fruits. Among the 70 isolates from the 27 different samples, 21 isolates showed positive for ethylene production. The ethylene production by E-4 isolate was maximum in Potato peel waste medium after optimization of various parameters. Molecular characterization and phylogenetic grouping of the ethylene producing isolate revealed that isolate E-4 was Enterobacter cloacae. The effect of fruit ripening treatments such as commercially available ethylene gas sachets and ethylene producing bacteria on ripening of mango were analysed in detail. The physical and biochemical characters of mango were measured after completion of the ripening process in each treatment. There was a saving of four days with chemical based ethylene gas and two days with microbially synthesized ethylene in the treated mango compared to fruits kept for natural ripening.