Impact of Harvest Time and Temperature on the Quality and Ripening of Mango (Mangifera indica L.) Fruit

The Mango fruit contains vitamins, pectin, antioxidants and minerals making it a very nutritious fruit. However, mango being highly perishable fruit has short storage life and varies with the variety of fruit, storage conditions and processing.  In this report, the Langra and Samar Bahisht Chaunsa mango fruit varieties were harvested at 6:30am, 1:30pm and 8:30pm for the three consecutive days from the selected trees and stored for ripening at different temperatures. It was observed that the mango fruit quality was highest for fruit harvested at 8:30pm and stored at 40°C while lowest for fruit harvested at 6:30am and stored at 20°C. The period for ripening was prolonged for fruit harvested at 6:30am and stored at 20°C while shortest for fruit harvested at 1:30pm and stored at 40°C, irrespective of the variety. The waste percent was minimum in case of fruit harvested at 6:30am and stored at 30°C while maximum in case of harvesting at 1:30pm and stored at 20°C, irrespective of the variety. Keywords: Quality; storage temperature; ripening rate; waste percent.