A survey of post-harvest losses in some fruits and vegetables and the fungi associated with them

Abstract

A survey was conducted of the post-harvet losses in some fruits and vegetables in the Central Province of Sri Lanka where 35 fruit and vegetable stalls were visited and imformation on storage practices and losses in various commodities gathered. The figures showed that losses in the range of 5-25perc. are commonplace in most commodities. Shelf life in many of these did not exceed 6-7 days. Thirty seven species of fungi belonging to 13 genera were isolated from the diseased fruit and vegetable samples collected in this survey. According to the nature of the infection and subsequent rotting these fungi could be divided in to two major categories:(1) those fungi that invade overripe fruit through mechanical wounds and cause latent infections in the immature fruits and develop rotting only when the fruit is ripened.