Post Harvest Management of Fruits

Post Harvest Management of Fruits India, a place of variations of different agroclimatic regions, rich in diversified horticultural flora. India being the largest producer of fruits and second largest producer of vegetables. But unfortunately the average Indian remains aloof from the basic requirements of fruits and vegetables. As a result of which there is a huge gap between gross production and net availability. All these is because of the inefficient post harvest management ,a significant portion of production is lost after harvest. Post harvest losses accounts to approximately 25 – 30 % of production. Just to feed the bursting population of india, maximising alone the production and productivity will not be enough. Efficient post harvest handling and processing is mere essential to make available more food (fruits) to the mankind. Post harvest losses of fruits: Post harvest losses of fruits can be defined as a loss in quantity or quality or both that occurs after harvest and till the produce reaches to the consumers. There may be physical loss, physiological loss or biological losses. Physical loss: it occurs due to injury in fruits at the time of harvesting,handling and transportation. Physiological loss: it occurs due to physiological processes of respiration and transpiration. Transpirational loss of moisture results in shriveled appearance of the commodities. Biological losses: it occurs due to macrobiological and microbiological agents like bacteria, fungi ,yeast etc. Post harvest management practices: Sorting or grading: Sorting is done in order to discard rotten, damaged, diseased, misshaped and overriped fruits before spreading infection to other healthy commodities. Grading is a form of grouping the fruits according to the firmness, cleanliness, size, weight, colour, shape and maturity. Washing: The produce is cleaned or washed in order to remove the dirt, dust ,insects, moulds .exception – onion, garlic, okra, mushroom are not washed. For surface decontamination , Chlorinated water(100 ppm) is effective.after this,the fruits are again washed with clean water. Curing: Curing is a means of natural wound healing process. It is a process of forming a corky layer against water loss and infection. Waxing: It is a process of application of waxy layer on the skin of the fruits to reduce moisture loss, shrievelling and to extend the storage life. Paraffin wax, carnauba wax and various resins are common types of waxes used. Waxol is a common coating material. Pre-cooling: The process of removal of heat from the just harvested fruits particularly during hot weather is called pre cooling. It helps in decreasing the transpiration rate, respiration rate,ripening providing an ease to transport and storage. The methods are room cooling, forced air cooling, hydro cooling, vacuum cooling etc. Hot water treatment: It is a process of eradicating or killing the infectious organism on several fruits. For inactivation of infection by Phytopthora sp. In tomato and oranges , Colletotrichum in papaya, mango and crown rot in banana , dip in hot water at 50+- 2degree C for 1-2 minutes. Hot water treatment of mango results in uniform ripening. Vapour heat treatment: It is termed as an ecofriendly treatment mostly applicable for fruit flies mostly mango. It is initially expensive and cannot be used much by small and marginal farmers. Total treatment time for mangoes is approximately 195 minutes. Regulation of ripening: Ripening of fruits like mango, banana can be regulated or is carried out in special treatment rooms with controlled temperatures with low application of ethylene. Release of ethylene occurs where fruits along with etherel alkaline solution is placed in a closed chamber. Ripening process is delayed and extension of shelf life is done by removing ethylene from storage atmosphere using ethylene absorbent. Packaging: Packaging is a process to assemble the produce into convenient units of handling and to protect the produce during distribution , storage and marketting. It is a means of prolonging the storage life. For packaging cushioning materials should be used.(paper shreds, paddy straw, thermocole). Packaging of fresh produce is done with bamboo baskets, sacks, wooden or plastic crates etc. corrugated fibre board(CFB)cartons being polar now a days for transport of fruits as they are of lighter weight and cheaper cost. Aseptic packaging, modified atmospheric packaging and controlled packaging are some new innovations of packaging. Transportation: It is a phase of movement of fruits from one place to another, performed by, means of rail,truck,airplane and ship.effective transportation doesnot help if there is no proper handling.in many developed countries pallets are used for trading of horticultural produce. Marketting: Fruits have a high degree of perishability so marketting problems are more in fruits. NHB(National horticultural board) provides good market intelligence service for horticultural products.NDDB, HOPCOM are few of marketting organizations for benefit of growers and consumers. Storage The process of maintaining life processes of fruits upto a required level till it reaches the consumers avoiding market glut is called storage. Methods: Refrigerated storage – storage of perishable commodities at the lowest temperature without any chilling injury is refrigerated storage.it strongly retards moisture loss and spoilage by microorganisms. Controlled or modified storage- it is a process of adjusting the atmospheric composition of air surrounding the fruits different from that of normal air. it involves reduction in O2 and elevation of CO2 concentrations. Hypobaric storage- it is a form of storage in which the produce is stored in partial vacuum.it is maintained to the desired low pressure by vacuum pump. It is limited to high value crops. Zero energy cool chamber- this zero energy cool chamber works on the principle of evaporative cooling using locally available materials like brick, sand and bamboo.as compared to surrounding atmosphere the temperature in the chamber is less. Conclusion : Post harvest loss is even more serious than that of production loss. It is impossible to deny from complete protection of post harvest losses but it can be minimized to some extent by following some of the modern cultural,harvesting,handling,marketting and processing techniques. Thus it must be kept in mind that operationalization of improved post harvest technologies must be intensively developed in our country through technology refinement, industrial liasion so that we don’t face any productive losses and people can acquire nutrients from fruits to the most , as per requirements. References.: Name of the books 1. Post harvest management of horticultural crops. Edited by M.A. MIR, G.M. BEIGH, HAFIZA AHSAN QUAZI NISSAR AHMAD, H.R.NAIK,A.H. RATHER. 2. Basics of horticulture. Editor – K.V Peter. Chapter no. 11. Post harvest management of fruits and vegetables, page no 497-506. Champ ,b.r ,highley ,E and Johnson ,G.I 1993. Post harvest handling of tropical fruits .proceedings of International conference held at Chiang mai,Thailand 19-13 july 1993. Mitra ,S.K .1997. postharvest physiology and storage of tropical and subtropical fruits CAB international new york. Salunkhe, D.K and Desai ,B.B 1984 post harvest biotechnology of fruits. Vol1 2 .CRC press, florida. Rao , S.D .V 2004 pre storage treatment for minimisation of post harvest losses in fruits . training manual on minimisation of post harvest losses in fruits organised by IIHR, bangalore.

Philosophy for a Society in this Day and Age of Virtual Reality :: Philosophy Philosophical essays

Philosophy for a Society in this Day and Age of Virtual Reality ABSTRACT: Virtual reality is more than only high tech. We encounter this phenomenon in everyday media worlds and economy. The sign dominates the signed. Philosophy can describe this phenomenon by means of a different ontological analysis following Poppers theory of the three worlds and can prepare new ontological categories for knowledge of acting. After twenty minutes the test person seems to be absent. With a cyberhelmet on his head he looks around the virtual room. Whereever he looks, he faces a computer landscape from every perspective. The hand in the cyberspace glove gropes for its way like in a vacuum space. But it touches the things which cross the way. The test person is located in the middle of a virtual world. In the room, where the computer is located, other people wait for the test. If the topic is virtual reality, scenes like described above are associated: High tech cyberspace on fast parallel comuters - if possible with a complete datasuit that allows to immerse almost completely into artificial worlds -, hovering through space, digital labyrinths and yet not built houses. But this examples only describes the tip of the iceberg. Under the watersurface of the extraordinary there is a wide ranging phenomenon of virtual realities: The economy with its big companies, transfers capital and networks dissolves to virtual entities. People get lost in entertainment in virtual landscapes and make friends via chatting. Scientists investigate phenomena of nature by reconstructed simulation and practicians design the future by a CAD program. People order pizza by internet, they flirt, make business, take journeys, join further education or talk with a coach. There is a virtualisation of the whole being. The classical differenciation between appearance and reality becomes blured. The simulation, in which people can walk around, is not fictive. It is not pure imagination, but something realized. It is reality although it is virtual. Economy makes it clear: Money and Capital are virtual entities. They determine our everyday life and they often decide about prosperity and poverty. The autonomy of virtual reality is even growing while gathering momentum. A computer simulation for example generates itself without external influence. That could be compared with numerous experiments with cellular machines (Herber P. Franke, Das P-Prinzip. Naturgesetzt im rechnenden Raum, Frankfurt am Main 1995). But also media worlds have their own dynamic. Tv world news and ezines do not only report, but create own realities.

Dickens and a Christmas Carol Essay

Here Scrooge is taken by a spirit to see himself, as a child, in his school. It is Christmas time and Scrooge was left in school instead of being with his family and friends, this shows spiritual poverty, whereby Scrooge is deprived of his family at Christmastime and therefore deprived of their love and kindness. Another example of spiritual poverty can be found on page 69. The spirit shows a vision of a Christmas yet to come, in which Scrooge has died. Nobody cared for Scrooge, because he was so cruel himself, and so members of his staff are selling his clothes. This is spiritual poverty because it demonstrates a total lack of respect for the dead in preference of financial gain. On pages 48-49, there is an example of material poverty. The Cratchits are having their Christmas dinner. It is a small, simple meal consisting of a goose, instead of a turkey, which is normally eaten by the rich, and also a small pudding. Despite this, the family were still happy and content. This is material poverty because it shows that poor people, who have no luxuries, are still able to make the most of what they do have, and be thankful. There is a further example of material poverty on page 61, where Scrooge is again taken by a spirit to visit a part of the city which he had never been to before. It describes in vivid detail the poverty and deprivation in this area. The stench in the quarter was awful, the area was filthy dirty and reeked of crime and misery. Material poverty is evident here because there is obviously no money in this area for people to forge better lives for themselves, or to enhance or repair the environment in which they live. We can tell that this story is located in a particular time in history by a number of reasons. The story is published in 1843, as stated on the cover. The book is largely centred around the concept of poverty which was widely in evidence during this era. At about this time, a writer called Thomas Malthus wrote an essay entitled, â€Å"Essay on Population†. This argued that the population was too big and that there were too many people being born. This point is emphasised when Scrooge is talking to the charitable gentleman about making a donation for the poor and Scrooge’s reply is to let the people die in the workhouse to reduce the surplus population. At this time, the Poor Law amended the Act of 1834 which abolished outdoor relief and established workhouses for the poor, which resembled prisons. Conditions were extremely poor. The work was tedious and the food was insufficient. Men, women and children were divided and the system was feared by them all. Dickens also thought that this system was inhumane. He attacked this system in â€Å"Oliver Twist† and highlighted the attitudes which had created it in â€Å"A Christmas Carol†. This shows that the book was written at this time in history because it coincided with the Poor Law amendments which features in â€Å"A Christmas Carol†. The attitude of Charles Dickens to the poverty he describes is one of disgust and sympathy. This is partly because he has himself experienced poverty and understands the impact that it can have on oneself. He seeks reform and in his books he has tried to highlight the issues of poverty and to point out why change was essential. This is why Dickens uses a Christmas theme in his book, hopefully to bring out the better qualities of people. Christmas being a period normally associated with kindness and goodwill to all men, he obviously hoped and believed that this would make people aware of the plight of the poor and hopefully change the attitudes of many who despised the poor and were not interested in their well-being. Many people actually profited from the exploitation of the poorer classes, particularly in the workhouses. Dickens wanted to ensure that this type of exploitation became impossible in the future, which was largely the reason why he highlighted these issues. An example of this is on page 56-57 where the spirit turns Scrooge’s own words against him saying, â€Å"Are there no prisons or workhouses? † This is in reference to the Want and Ignorance children, that the spirit is showing Scrooge. The children are ragged and dirty and Scrooge is shocked to the core by their appearance and realises what he has done by ignoring the needs of the poor. Although Dickens did not really succeed in changing the lives of the poor at this time, his efforts did help to bring about improved conditions and reform from the 1870’s onwards.

Worst Environmental Problem Overpopulation Essay

There are many kinds of environment: the physical environment often thought of as nature, psychological environments built out of human interactions, and political environments rife with manipulation and posturing. While there are some obvious effects that large human populations would have on the natural environment, there are also less evident psychological and political ramifications. Thus, overpopulation is todays most pressing environmental issue. Acclaimed hermit Henry David Thoreau once wrote that humans have plenty of space. â€Å"Our horizon is never quite at our elbows† (Thoreau, 49). But is this really true? The U.S. Census Bureaus international population clock estimates the global population at slightly over 8.6 billion†¦show more content†¦It stands to reason that the planet we live on has a finite limit of resources: water, air, and land. More people mean more industry, which means an increase in the resources we consume and the more emissions we produ ce. There is also evidence to support theories regarding human contribution to global warming and climate change. As the population grows, cities are constructed along rivers and other waterways, and the sources are modified to meet urban needs rather than ecological. More and more food needs to be grown to nourish people. Now, land is degrading and sea levels are rising, making growing impossible in many former farming areas. Because of this, ... 800 million people are chronically malnourished, and 2 billion lack food security (Dahl, 603). Because agriculture for the masses depends heavily on irrigation, it puts additional strain on the globes water tables (Dahl, 602). Not to mention that current water sources are being polluted by sewer discharge and industrial waste. Deforestation is another issue. Forests and other natural vegetation help protect against flooding and soil erosion. In the 1990s, 563,709 square miles of land were cleared of forests (Dahl, 602). 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