On farm post harvest handling of aonla in Gujarat state 

Abstract

An extensive survey of 62 aonla orchards with person interview schedule was undertaken to obtain comprehensive information on post harvest handling of aonla fruits followed by farmers in the state of Gujarat. Manual harvesting and collection was followed by 93% of the farmers with lower harvesting capacity (111.20 kg/day/person) and higher harvesting losses  (1-6%). Average harvesting losses were found 3.10 %. During whole harvesting season, aonla growers followed 3 to 10 pickings. Very few farmers used the fruit picker for harvesting aonla. Average fruit yield per tree was 84 kg. Manual grading with very low capacity (182kg/day/person) was followed by aonla farmers. Aonla farmers adopted fruit size as the main grading criteria and categorised the fruits into three grades. About 85 % farmers did gunny bag packaging with an average package size of 40 -50 kg. Green leaves of trees were used as cushioning material. Farmers dispatch the aonla fruits to the wholesale market in evening with hired and locally available vehicles like loading Rickshaw, Chhakada, matador, etc. The produce of the majority of the farmers in Gujarat travelled up to 100 km. The transportation losses were found between 1 and 5 % with an average value of 2.6 %. Storage of aonla fruits was not performed at orchard level. Harvested aonla fruits taken to the wholesale market on the same day or in few cases latest by the next day morning. Harvesting, grading, packaging and transportation are the most problematic and time consuming operations in post harvest handling of aonla fruits at orchard level.