Abstract

This study was conducted to analyze the effects of Controlled Atmosphere Storage (CAS) and low temperatures on quality attributes of cv. Keitt mango. Mango is one of the choicest fruits in the world and popular due to its delicious taste, pleasant aroma and nutritional value. To date, only 3% of the total world production is being exported due to the perishable nature of the product, lack of proper storage and other postharvest related diseases. Post-harvest loss of mango in Ethiopia is estimated to be between 25-40% and would occur during handling, transportation and storage. Storage loss could arise owing to atmospheric conditions and temperature. CAS is agricultural technologies which monitor and adjust constantly the level of CO2 and O2 within storage to reduce the .rate of physiological and biochemical changes, ethylene sensitivity and incidence of decay development of mangoes and also inhibit pathogen growth. Thus, this study was under taken to determine the optimum storage conditions of Ethiopian mango in order to reduce considerable postharvest mango losses. In this work, randomized block design experimental was employed for optimization of the influencing factors mainly CAS and temperatures. Accordingly, experiments were carried out at constant storage temperature of 7oC with different atmospheric conditions of A (10%CO2 + 6%O2+84%N2), B (8%CO2+ 6%O2+86%N2), C (5%CO2+5%O2+90%N2) and Control (0.03% CO2 + 21% O2+79%N2). Besides, fruits also stored at different constant temperatures of 7 oC, 10 oC, 13oC and control (21-24 oC) respectively. The result obtained showed that effect of CAS on quality attributes (weight loss and firmness) of cv. Keitt mango significantly improved the storage life as compared to that stored at ambient atmosphere with list significant difference values being at 0.05=3.12 and 1.708 respectively. In addition, the effect of temperature on Total soluble solid, Titrable acidity, pH, weight loss, firmness and skin color was found to be sign