Post Harvest Practices Of Hass Avocado Fruits To Export

Unlike other fruits which are usually bright and conspicuous avocado usually become duller (brown) in appearance. The fruit is also to be picked before it ripens. The picking of the fruits from the tree is either done by the farmer or the buyer himself who have the market either local or international. For those who have international market, need to do a number of practices in order to meet the standards put in place by the market.

These practices include;

Selection

The avocado are sorted out into different categories basing on;

Farmer

This applies where the buyer has purchased fruits from different farmers and this helps to identify fruits with the individual farmer.

Size

The avocado fruits are then sorted out into different sizes. The sizes may range from 28 to 84 where 28 are the biggest with the weight of 13.7oz and size 84 is the smallest with the weight of 4.5oz. every size has its price in the market

Marks and Diseases

Since the avocados are being sold at the international market only the best quality fruits are considered for export. Therefore any fruit which has marks caused by diseases, insects, rodents or mechanical handling are rejected

Presence of Chemical in the fruits

The international prefers the organic avocado fruits compared to the fruits produced using chemicals. Therefore during sorting the organic fruits are highly rated and may fetch a fortune while the others produced using chemical fetch low prices or may even be rejected by the market. Therefore it is important for a farmer to grow there fruits organically to avoid this situation of their fruits being rejected when taken to the market for export

 The fruits are then sprayed with prochloraz or sportak that is used to discourage or prevent the growth of fungus. This helps to control anthracnose disease from fruits. This also helps to keep the insets away from the fruits. This also helps the fruit from over ripening hence increases the shelf life of the fruit

Packaging of avocado

After the fruits are sized and sorted they are then packed into (trays and boxes as determined by the importing countries). The packaging technique varies according to the market, being cardboard, plastic, or wood. The most common containers are single wall corrugated fiberboard or wooden boxes. Smaller fruit are bulk packed into 10kg cartons. Plastic inserts with molded cups are placed in the tray. Single layer trays weigh around 6kg. Fruit are stamped with small stickers.

Cooling of Avocado

The fruits are taken in a cooling storage room which should be below 4 degrees Celsius. The time that the fruit is kept in the cooling room will depend with the initial temperature of the fruit. The fruits are advisable to be below 2 degrees Celsius when they are removed from the cooling chamber. This cooling helps the fruits to maintain its quality and also controls pests and diseases.

Transportation

The means for transport is either water or air. The containers in which the fruits are used for transportation are equipped with cooling systems that enable the fruits to retain its quality and prevents the fruits from diseases.

At oxfarm, we propagate and sell grafted hass avocado.

About Post Author

OxfarmAg

kahurodickson@gmail.com

http://www.oxfarmorganic.com/

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