Delayed harvesting of bananas with 'sealed' covers on bunches. 2. Effect on fruit yield and quality

A field study was conducted to examine the effects of various bunch covering and harvest delay combinations on the environment inside bunch covers, and on fruit yield and quality parameters. Treatments included the use of both unsealed and initially sealed (but often ultimately leaky) clear covers under the industry standard blue/silver cover, and the inclusion of an ethylene absorbent inside 'sealed' covers. The finger length, girth and weight of 'sealed' cover bunches that were harvested late were increased by up to 11, 13, and 37% respectively. Maturity bronzing increased with increasing delay of harvest of 'sealed' cover fruit. Greenlife was increased by the 'sealed' cover treatment, but decreased with increasing delay of harvest of 'sealed' cover bunches, and was increased by the presence of KMnO,. Greenlife was inversely related to finger size such that any treatment resulting in larger fruit tended also to reduce greenlife. The peel of ripe fruit from 'sealed' covers was greyer than that of the controls. Delaying harvesting increased the pulp to peel ratio of ripe fruit by 4%. The flavour of 'sealed' cover fruit was blander than that of their counterparts, with delay of harvest further reducing flavour. Up to about 40% of bunches were lost before harvest, due to snapped stems or to rotting of the bunch when the harvest of 'sealed' cover bunches was delayed during the warmer part of the year. Consequently, the yield of fruit with greenlife in excess of 10 days was as high from the standard treatment as from any of the more elaborate treatments. However, the 'sealed' cover treatment, when harvested at the normal time, produced the most fruit with a greenlife greater than 30 days.