Harvesting is the first and one of the most crucial steps in the postharvest handling of produce. Attention to detail is paramount at this stage. Harvesting produce requires good practice to prevent rapid quality deterioration, increased wastage and at the very worst rejection of entire loads on arrival at the destination market.

CASE STUDY – Mango producer in India
Many of the larger mango producers in India are looking to export their produce by sea freight to long distance markets. Whilst they have a good understanding of the requirements of the destination markets, they were often unable to deliver a uniform product at the right stage of ripeness in the right condition. This led to whole shipments being rejected on the grounds of cost of re-sorting the fruit and yield of good quality fruit. It is easy to forget that at harvest, the fruit is firm as an apple, but actually is as delicate as a fully ripened peach. We provided advice and training to growers and field workers on the optimum harvest maturity stage (in some cases defining harvest maturity indices for new varieties); harvesting technique; and subsequent field handling. As a result, the mango producers have been able to successfully enter the European markets and replace costly air shipments with sea freight.

We can provide the following services:

• Advise growers on the timing, method of harvesting and field handling of their crop for domestic and export markets; and provide training to growers and workers on best practice
• On behalf of growers we can evaluate novel technologies for determination of optimum harvest maturity stage and innovative equipment for harvesting and field packing