EFFECTS OF POSTHARVEST TREATMENTS AND PACKAGING MATERIALS ON QUALITY AND SHELF-LIFE OF AVOCADO (Persea americana Mill) FRUIT

Avocado is one of the export fruit commodities in Ethiopia and increasing than other. However, its production is faced with pre-harvest and postharvest factors with higher magnitude of postharvest losses. The loss was estimated to 40%. To minimize the postharvest loss, determining effective pre-storage treatments and a combination of pre-storage treatments with a proper selection of packaging material have potential to extend the storage life and maintained quality of avocado fruit. This research was conducted to evaluate the effect of prepackaging and packaging treatments on the shelf life and quality of Hass avocado fruit. The experiment was conducted at Haramaya University from July to August 2021. The treatment consisted of five prepackaging treatments {3%Beeswax (BW), 6%CaCl2, 0.5% NaOCl, combination (BW+CaCl2+NaOCl), and distilled water as a control} and the three packaging materials {low density of Polyethylene (LDPE) plastic, carton, open environment}. The treatments were laid out in 5x3 factorial combinations in a complete randomized design (CRD) with three replications and various physicochemical parameters were collected and analyzed. The effect of interaction of prepackaging treatment and packaging materials were found to be highly significant throughout the storage period of 28 days. The combination prepackaging treatments and LDPE packaging materials significantly reduced the percentage of physiological loss in weight, decay, total soluble solid, pH of avocado juice and loss of ascorbic acid and also increased the shelf life of the fruit by 16 days compared to the control. The highest fruit firmness, marketability, ascorbic acid, and titratable acidity were also recorded from the combination prepackaging treatments with LDPE packaging material. From the result of the study, the combination treatment (BW+6% CaCl2+0.5% NaOCl) with LDPE plastic packaging material gave quality parameters. The Beeswax, CaCl2 and combination prepackaging treatments with LDPE packaging material extended the shelf life of avocado from 27- 28 days without any significant difference among them. Generally, the result showed that combination of prepackaging with LDPE and carton packaging material can be recommended from the quality and shelf-life point of view on Hass avocado fruit