Journal of Middle East Applied Science and Technology (JMEAST) ISSN (Online): 2305-0225 Issue 6(4), April 2014, pp. 153-156 153 Abstract— Vegetables are living parts of plant and contain 65 to 95 percent water. Horticultural crops have high level of postharvest decay and loss due to lack of proper packaging methods and storage condition. This study was carried out to evaluate the effect of postharvest treatments and storage conditions. Five leafy vegetables including garden cress, parsley, coriander, peppermint and chives were used. Healthy and free from defect vegetables treated with washing or un-washing treatments and stored as covered and uncovered with polyethylene (PE) at 4 o C. The results showed that the weight loss and decay were different in 5 species and cress and Mint had highest and lowest decay respectively. Treatments affected weight loss and deceased yellowing and decay percent. Combination of washing and covered Treatments caused less weight loss and is recommended as easy and straight methods in developing country. Keywords—Postharvest decay, vegetable packaging, I. INTRODUCTION RESH vegetables and fruits are the important part of human diet and now well established that these materials have a high nutritional value and their consumption is effective in human health [1]. Also as reported vegetables are important sources of vitamins, minerals, dietary fiber, and antioxidants [2]. However because of low postharvest life of fresh vegetables, marketing and transportation problems, high cost of storage and pathogen attack their proportion in people diet is restricted. These limitations mainly rise because of vegetable delicate tissues and infection to fungi, bacterial and other microorganism. Therefore fresh and unprocessed vegetables are suitable carrier of at least a bacteria, fungi or virus to human [3], [4]. Several researches had been reported that crud vegetables are carrier of the pathogenic agents [4], [5]. However pathogens Manuscript received Revised version received This work was supported in part by the faculty of agriculture, University of Kurdistan. a: Assistant Professor of postharvest technology, Department of Horticultural Science. University of Kurdistan, PO. Box: 416 Sanandaj, Iran. b: M.Sc. student of horticultural science, Department of Horticultural Science. University of Kurdistan, PO. Box: 416 Sanandaj, Iran. * corresponding author phone: +98 8716620552, Fax: +98 8716620553 e-mail: m.saba@uok.ac.ir cause vegetable tissues injured and decreased postharvest life before infect human. Since fruit and vegetables are alive after harvest and have delicate and perishable tissues provide a suitable medium to spread pathogens [6], [7]. These factors limited postharvest life of vegetables and also average consumption in developing country. Iran has four season climate and produce huge amount of vegetables [8] but postharvest loss in higher than 30%. The current study was carried out to apply easy and applicable methods and to evaluate their effectiveness in postharvest decay. II. MATERIALS AND METHODS A. Plant material The current was conducted at the laboratory of physiology, department of horticultural science, University of Kurdistan. Five common fresh vegetables that are sensitive to environmental condition were used. Materials provided from farmer included: garden cress (Lepidium sativum L), Parsley Leaf (Petroselinum crispum), Peppermint (Mentha piperata L), chives (Alium ampeloprasum ssp. persicum), and coriander (Coriandrum sativum L) and immediately transferred to laboratory. B. Treatments In all species similar, healthy and free from any defect sample were separated and divided to two lots. The first lot washed with tap water for 5 min and second assumed as without washing. Each lot was divided to two sections and transferred to special vegetable tray. The first lots of either washed or unwashed sample were covered with polyethylene (PE) film and second were left uncovered. All sample were weighted and stored at 4 o C. Sampling was carried out during 10 days. Parameters such as weight loss, percent of yellow leaves and percent of lesions were monitored during experiment. C. Statistical analysis Data were analyzed statistically using analysis of variance (ANOVA) and differences among the means were determined for significance at P< 0.05 using Duncan multiple range test by MSTATC software. The effect of postharvest treatments and storage methods on leafy vegetable decay M. Koushesh Saba a* , S. Moradi b and A. Gouran b F