~ 2239 ~ Journal of Pharmacognosy and Phytochemistry 2019; 8(1): 2239-2243 E-ISSN: 2278-4136 P-ISSN: 2349-8234 JPP 2019; 8(1): 2239-2243 Received: 22-11-2018 Accepted: 24-12-2018 Rocky Thokchom Department of Horticulture and Postharvest Technology, Institute of Agriculture, Visva- Bharati, Sriniketan, West Bengal, India Goutam Mandal Department of Horticulture and Postharvest Technology, Institute of Agriculture, Visva- Bharati, Sriniketan, West Bengal, India Correspondence Rocky Thokchom Department of Horticulture and Postharvest Technology, Institute of Agriculture, Visva- Bharati, Sriniketan, West Bengal, India Effect of postharvest treatments on physical characteristics of mango Rocky Thokchom and Goutam Mandal Abstract The present postharvest investigation was aiming to assess the effect of various postharvest treatments on the storage behaviour of Mango cv. Himsagar during the year 2016-17 in the postharvest laboratory of Department of Horticulture and Postharvest Technology, Institute of Agriculture, Visva-Bharati, Sriniketan. Fresh fruits of uniform size, shape, colour, free from disease and bruises were harvested at physiological mature stage and after pre-cooling, desapping and washing were given various postharvest treatment of sodium hypochlorite (NaOCl: 100, 150, 200ppm), 6-benzyladenine (BA: 50, 100, 150ppm) and hot water (52 to 55 o C) for 5, 10 and 15 minutes. The fruits were subjected to air dried and kept in 5 ply corrugated boxes (5% ventilation) with newspaper lining and stored in ambient conditions. The fruits were analysed for various physical quality attributes at different storage intervals up to 12 days. The results revealed that minimum physiological loss in weight (0, 3.07, 5.98 and 10.89%) and high surface (shrinkage) score (5, 5, 4.8 and 4.4) of the fruits after 3, 6, 9 and 12 days respectively were observed in BA (100ppm) treated fruits during storage. Moreover, higher flesh firmness retention and palatability rating have best resulted from BA treated fruits during storage. Hot water treatment for 5 minutes was found to be best in controlling the microbial spoilage percentage in all analysis intervals. This study shows that the storability and physical quality of mango cv. Himsagar can be favourably influenced during storage when treated with BA and hot water treatment. Keywords: Mango, NaOCl, BA, hot water, physical quality, storage Introduction Mango (Mangifera indica L.) the irresistible fruit indigenous to the Indo-Burma region (Mukherjee, 1958) [27] is the only fruit which lends itself to a smorgasbord of preparations both in its ripe and unripe forms. Due to its excellent dessert quality, adaptability, relatively hardy nature and low cost of raising, mango have spread throughout the length and breadth of India except in the hilly regions above 1400 m above mean sea level. It has a large varietal wealth, delicious taste, attractive fragrance and many health promoting properties (Salunkhe and Desai, 1984) [29] . India ranks first in mango production (19686.9 thousand MT) with a total area of 2262.8 thousand hectares (Anonymous, 2017) [4] . In West Bengal, the area under mango cultivation is 97.93 thousand hectare and production of 836.07 thousand MT (Anonymous, 2017) [4] . The major mango producing districts are Malda, Murshidabad, 24 Parganas North and Nadia (Anonymous, 2017) [4] . Mango cv. Himsagar is the choicest variety and indigenous to West Bengal and has gained extensive popularity for its excellent dessert and keeping quality (Anonymous, 2018) [5] . There is also a considerable amount of mango fruits losses every year during harvest and post-harvest handling which comes up to an average of 9.16 % (Jha et al., 2015) [17] . Fruit rot in storage and on the field condition is the major factor affecting production and marketing worldwide (Jay, 2003; Onuba and Nwagbara, 2011) [15, 11] . In comparisons with other fruits, mangoes have greater problems in storage and transportation because of its perishable nature (Mitra and Baldwin, 1997) [25] so; Amin et al. (2008) [3] described its postharvest management major challenges in mango industry. The physical appearance of the fruits is the foremost and primary factor critical to consumer acceptance in the market. So it is very necessary to maintain the physical characteristics of fruits during storage. Appropriate postharvest treatment, storage and processing methods in fruit can curtail the postharvest losses up to 30% and make the fruit available for longer periods (Goyal et al., 2008; Singh et al., 2009) [13, 36] . Postharvest treatment of hot water and sodium hypochlorite are recommended for fungal disinfection of mango fruit for increasing shelf life (APEDA, 2007) [7] whereas, postharvest treatment of BA delays the senescence of many harvested crops (Majeski and Brasley, 1968) [22] . Thus, to control the physical characteristics and overcome the postharvest losses, the present investigation was undertaken to study the effect of various postharvest treatments on the physical characteristics of mango cv. Himsagar.