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The experiment entitled “Feasibility of Pusa Zero Energy Cool Chamber as low cost on-farm storage structure under Kerala condition” was undertaken at Department of Post Harvest Technology from 2017-2019 with the objective to evaluate the feasibility of Pusa Zero Energy Cool Chamber as a low cost on-farm storage structure for horticultural perishables during different seasons under humid tropical climate of Kerala.
Six different fruits and vegetables, viz., papaya, snake gourd, cucumber, bitter gourd, amaranth and cowpea were stored in perforated plastic crates under Pusa zero energy cool chambers (PZECC) each of 165cm length, 115 cm breadth and 75 cm height during three seasons viz., June - September, October - February and March – May by maintaining 85-95% relative humidity inside the chamber with same set of commodities kept under ambient storage conditions as control. The study was conducted as six separate experiments for different commodities and possibility of storage of each commodity during different seasons was assessed based on physical, physiological, chemical and sensory quality parameters.
Papaya, snake gourd and bitter gourd stored in PZECC during March- May and October- February had high shelf life, marketability and colour, where as cucumber had high shelf life and marketability when stored in PZECC only during March - May. Though the treatment combinations had no significant effect, amaranth and cowpea kept inside the PZECC had high shelf life, marketability and colour with low physiological loss in weight. The enhanced shelf life received for papaya fruits kept in ZECC was only 1.55 and 1.66 days during Oct- Feb and March- May respectively compared to their corresponding ambient storage, where as it was 0.89 and 0.66 days for bitter gourd and 0.78 and 1.55 days for cucumber. Amaranth had two days additional shelf life when kept under PZECC.
Papaya, bitter gourd, cucumber and snake gourd had least shelf life when stored in PZECC during June- September. Storage under the chamber during June – September had resulted in poor colour development in bitter gourd and snake gourd, poor texture in snake gourd and lowest marketability in cucumber.
All the sensory parameters were affected by the treatments in cucumber, amaranth, and cowpea. In other commodities, majority of the sensory parameters were not influenced by season and storage conditions
Microbial load of papaya and snake gourd, cowpea, amaranth were not affected by the treatments; But bacterial load in bitter gourd and fungal load in cucumber were high when stored under PZECC during June – September.
Carotene content in snake gourd and cowpea, vitamin C of bitter gourd, cucumber and cowpea and oxalate content in amaranth were not influenced by the treatments indicating that majority of the nutritional parameters were unaffected by storage conditions.
PZECC is a low cost on-farm storage structure which could be constructed at a cost of Rs.5000/- per unit. But the structure helped only in marginal enhancement in shelf life of horticultural perishables that too only during March- May and October- February and was not at all suitable during the rainy season (June-September).
The result of the present study showed that the PZECC, designed for the Rural North India as such cannot be recommended as an efficient on farm storage structure for Kerala. It has to be suitably modified for tropical humid climate and proper post harvest management practices are to be adopted before storing a commodity in the storage structure, so that it would be a better option for temporary storage of commodities awaiting marketing and short term maintenance of quality horticultural perishables, reducing the wastage of perishable commodities.