Importance of Managing Humidity and Temperature from Harvest to Packinghouse

The time harvest to delivery of fruits and vegetables to the packing facility can be most critical in determining potencial quality at market place. While focusis placed on cooling or keeping the fruit or vegetable cool, often little thought is placed on the importance of relative humidity.

Temperature and relative humidity are of equal importance, particularly for prevention of water loss. We have conducted research over the years looking at approaches to managing fruit and vegetable temperature and humidity immediately after harvest and during transport to the packing facility. The results have been consistent in that quality can be best maintained only if both humidity and temperature are managed together and this has be found important for fruits or vegetables that would be sold as fresh or for processing.

This on-line publication on humidity and temperature from the crop to warehouse, is sponsored by: AgriCoat, Agro-Technologie, Instrumentos and Grupo Maf Roda