Post-harvest management of granadilla in the Yangana parish, canton and province of Loja

Abstract

Post-harvest management comprises a set of stages, from harvest to storage, it’s had a huge importance in helping reduce fruits and vegetables post-harvest losses and ensuring the sale of quality and safe products; for this, a passionfruit post-harvest diagnosis was made on the Yangana producers, then, preliminary tests were carried out  to determine the best treatments of the disinfection based on results from organoleptic, physicochemical and microbiological analysis, for which different packaging and disinfectants were used (sodium hypochlorite 20 ppm, ozone 40 ppm and acetic acid 100 ppm), then, variable production costs and retail prices of the best treatment was determined. The most important results were: from the carried out diagnosis it is identified that farmers have some drawbacks in various stages of fruit post-harvest; based on the results of quality analysis, made on the definitive treatments, it is determined that passion fruit with a maturity state of 5, disinfected with sodium hypochlorite at 20 ppm for 2 min, packed in cardboard boxes and refrigerated at 7°C, had the longest shelf life, this being 40 days; whose variable production cost and retail price were of 0,20 and 0,25 USD, respectively; finally, with the obtained results, a manual about the passionfruit post-harvest management was elaborated with the purpose of transferring these results to the Yangana producers.