© All Rights Reserved *Corresponding author. Email: iqbal21155@bau.edu.bd International Food Research Journal 23(1): 277-283 (2016) Journal homepage: http://www.ifrj.upm.edu.my Hossain, M.S. and * Iqbal, A. Department of Food Technology and Rural Industries, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh-2202, Bangladesh Effect of shrimp chitosan coating on postharvest quality of banana (Musa sapientum L.) fruits Abstract To reduce the post-harvest loss and extension of shelf-life of banana, green mature bananas were coated with 0.5%, 0.75% and 1% chitosan, respectively. Following treatments, bananas were stored at 26±2 0 C and 85 ± 5% RH. The effectiveness of the treatments in extending fruit’s shelf-life was evaluated by determining total weight loss, colour, total soluble solid, titratable acidity, disease incidence and disease severity during the storage period. The chitosan coating reduced respiration activity, thus delaying ripening and the progress of decay due to senescence. Chitosan coatings delayed changes in weight loss, total soluble solids, titratable acidity and external colour compared to untreated samples. Bananas coated with 1% chitosan exhibited less weight loss and reduced darkening than other treatments and control sample. Disease incidence and disease severity was remarkably reduced by chitosan coating application. Chitosan coating extended banana up to the shelf life of more 3 to 4 days. This study showed that 1% chitosan was more suitable in prolonging the shelf-life and quality of banana during ripening and storage. Introduction Huge post-harvest losses of fruits and vegetables are a matter of grave concern for any country whose economy is agriculture based. But this is a general phenomenon happening in almost every developing country. Fruits and vegetables are highly perishable commodities that require to be handled with much care to minimize losses. Because of the high moisture content, horticultural crops are inherently more liable to deteriorate especially under tropical conditions (Thumula, 2006). They are biologically active and carry out transpiration, respiration, ripening and other biochemical activities, which result in quality deterioration. Banana is one of the most favoured tropical fruits and is very popular worldwide. It is one of the prime fruit in Bangladesh occupying huge area for production among the fruits. The total production of banana is about 746000 metric tons from 122000 acres of land in 2011-12 (BBS, 2013). It is the only fruit crop which is available throughout the year and its consumption is higher than any other fruits. Banana fruits are climacteric in nature which ripen rapidly and soften after harvest. Banana fruit are usually harvested at mature green stage and stored either at ambient or at low temperature. Due to its high nutritive value, banana is susceptible to diseases caused by microorganisms. In addition, banana is also sensitive to low temperature storage (Malmiri et al., 2011). All these mentioned factors limit the handling, storage, distribution and marketing potentials of banana fruit. Postharvest loss of banana is one of the major problems globally. In a developing country like Bangladesh the scenario is much worse. In Bangladesh huge amount of Banana is spoiled due to prevailing high temperature, humidity, inappropriate post-harvest handling and due to sub optimal knowledge in the feld of post-harvest technology. The spoilage of the fruit attributed to adverse physiological changes, namely loss of weight due to respiration and transpiration, loss of fesh hardness and loss of resistance to microbial attack. Such spoilage can occur either during transportation and/ or in the market resulting considerable economic loss to farmer, importer and retailers. Moreover, there is no known technique to the growers/traders of Bangladesh, in particular to extend the shelf life of banana. As a result, a considerable quantity of harvested bananas goes waste due to its perishable nature. The extents of postharvest losses of banana in Bangladesh from harvesting to consumption of banana were recorded as 26.63% (Molla et al., 2012). Keywords Chitosan Shrimp waste Banana and shelf life Article history Received: 19 September 2014 Received in revised form: 14 June 2015 Accepted: 19 June 2015