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| Fruit ripening a clinical process in the hands of farmers | | | By : Pankhuri Aggarwal
There are two kinds of fruits. One is those which ripen only on trees. So these are picked from the trees after they are ripe. If these are removed from the plants unripe or half ripe, they will stay like that only. Their quality cannot be improved once these are removed from the trees. Grape, litchi, pomegranate, citrus fruits etc. fall into this category.
Others are those which do not ripen on trees. These have to be picked unripe and then induced to ripen after their removal from the tree.
Banana, mango, pear, apricot, chikoo etc. belong to this group. The fruits are shipped unripe from the orchards to markets. Ripening is induced at the market end, mostly by the wholesalers at their warehouses.
The fruits of this group are picked from the trees after they have attained their full size and are "physiologically mature". This maturity is determined by growers from certain physical characteristics like size, colour, firmness etc. The fruits which have been harvested at perfect maturity will develop the real taste. These will also have the highest nutrient content. If the fruits are harvested before maturity, there will be loss of fruit quality depending upon how early before maturity the fruits have been picked from tree.
Inducing unripe fruits of this group to ripe by adopting various techniques is a perfect horticultural practice. It is going on for centuries. There is nothing wrong or unethical with this practice.
A number of techniques are used for inducing ripening in unripe fruits. This is going on since the beginning of commercial fruit growing. The most common practice is just to keep the fruits in open or packed in containers for a few days and let them ripen. However, this does not work in case of all fruits or fruits harvested earlier.
The ripening is not even and all the fruits may not ripen at the same time. So this method is feasible only for home use and not on commercial scale where all the fruits should be evenly ripe and the process should also not take too long.
Dr. Pawan Sharma said, "In case of bananas, where the quantity of fruits to be ripened is very large, bunches are stacked in a small chamber like room and smoke is generated in this room which is sealed from outside. The fruits ripen in 1-2 days as a result of contact with organic gases contained in the smoke. The mild heat generated in this smoke chamber also helps".
He further added, "Calcium carbide is very widely used by fruit vendors for ripening mango. A small quantity of the chemical is put in paper packets. One or two of these packets are placed in the crate of mango fruits. The chemical comes in contact with water vapours contained in the air in crates and starts releasing acetylene gas at a very slow rate. This gas induces ripening in fruits and the unripe fruits in the crate turn ripe within 24 hours. This is very simple and cost effective technique. Nearly all the mangoes sold in the Indian market are ripened like this with calcium carbide.
This chemical is used for ripening of many other fruits e.g. papaya, chikoo, plums etc". As in other cases, these chemicals are also being misused. Fruits are picked from the trees much before maturity, induced to ripen with these chemicals and then sold in the market.
As such fruits had not attained the full physiological maturity, so they lack the real taste, flavour and even the right nutrient content.
Though it is not a fair practice, but growers or traders cannot be solely blamed for this. The choice of fruit varieties is so limited with them 80 per cent mango trees in North India are Dasheri only that all the fruits ripen in 8-15 days resulting in crash of prices. So these people are left with no other choice than to pick fruits much before the right time. |
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