Effect of Harvesting Methods on Storage Behaviour of Mandarin ( Citrus Reticulata Blanco) Under Cellar Condition

Mandarin (Citrus reticulata Blanco) is a premier fruit crop expanding rapidly in the hilly areas of Nepal. Most of the mandarin growers in Nepal are using conventional harvesting method which is responsible for deteriorating the fruit quality and shortening the postharvest shelf life. Thus, this experiment was conducted to evaluate the effect of different harvesting methods on quality and shelf-life of mandarin during storage under the Cellar condition (11±2°C and 85-90% RH). For this, mandarin fruits harvested by different methods i.e. hitting by sticks, direct pulling, twisting and pulling, and clipping were stored for 90 days and fortnight interval reading of different quality parameters were carried out. The experimental results revealed that fruits harvested by clipper with small pedicel intact recorded the minimum PLW (3.15%), decay loss (8.33%), and TSS (10.57° Brix) and retained the higher fruit firmness (3.30 kg/cm2), maximum juice recovery percentage (49.69), TA (0.85%) and vitamin C (25.50 mg/100 ml) during the storage under Cellar condition. The study concluded that fruits harvesting with clipper can be stored safely up to three months under the Cellar condition.