Merma en banano: formación de cluster con banda elástica en racimos de banano cultivar williams.

Abstract

Bananas are one of the most demanded crops worldwide, due to their high nutritional value and excellent flavor. They are Ecuador's leading agricultural export product and represent the livelihood of approximately 2.5 million people who work directly and indirectly in the banana industry. Improving preventive quality work in the field is key to increasing the productivity and profitability of the crop. Post-harvest losses reduce producer income, mainly due to low preventive quality in the field, physiological damage and pests, among others. For the above reasons, it was proposed to reduce the loss in the postharvest process using elastic bands placed from the second week of bunch development, forming clusters of 4, 5, 6, 8 fingers to improve export quality. The experimental area was 0.18 ha, located at the Santa Inés Experimental Farm belonging to the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences of the UTMACH, and a randomized block design with 4 treatments and 10 replications was implemented. The treatments consisted of the application of nitrogen fertilizer sources diluted and injected to the pseudostem from the vegetative phase monthly until flowering, then once the plants were delivered, elastic bands were placed on the bunches from their second week of sheathing and the plants, leaving the treatments as follows; T1 = rubber bands + urea; T2 = rubber bands + ammonium nitrate; T3 = rubber bands + ammonium sulfate; T4 = absolute control without application. The variables evaluated were: bunch weight (Prac), rachis weight (Praq), hand weight (Pman), last hand grade (Gum), number of hands (Nman), sun hand grade (Gms), number of fingers sun hand (Ndms), number of clusters per cluster (Ncrac), ratio (Ratio), shrinkage (Merma), number of leaves at cutting (NHCor), number of clusters per 22XU box (Cbox), weight of total clusters (PCT). The data obtained were analyzed using the SPSS program. The results obtained showed that the use of the elastic bands reduced the loss considerably and improved the preventive quality of the bunch; the variables that were significant were: Pman, Ndms, Ratio, Loss, Ccaja, PCT. The rachis weight variable of all treatments was not significant. In hand weight there was no considerable variation among treatments, showing an average of 57.99 lb with an average of 22 fingers in the sun hand; the loss was lower in T1 with a value of 1.2 lb of rejected fruit, while in treatments T2 (0.81 lb), T3 (1.07 lb) and T4 with 7.03. The treatment with the highest ratio was T1 with a mean of 1.35, which differs from T3 with a mean of 1.04, indicating that the use of elastic bands, together with the supply of diluted urea injected into the pseudostem, increases the bunch ratio and reduces bunch loss. The variables Praq, Gms, Gmu, Nman, Ncrac and NHCor did not show significance between treatments, the Praq of T1 had a mean of 6.45 lb, for degree of sun hand and degree of the last hand, at the time of cutting, bunches were considered whose Gum was 39 and Gms was 43, the variable Nman of T1 had a mean of 7.90 and T2 had a value lower than 7, demonstrating that the use of elastic bands with ammonium nitrate was low in relation to T1 and T3; Ncrac was between 20 and 25 clusters according to each treatment and finally NHCor obtained an average of 6 leaves in all treatments. The use of elastic bands and nitrogen fertilizers injected to the pseudostem, reduced the percentage of loss (fruit without exportable quality), forming the cluster in the field, avoiding physical and mechanical damage until harvest, this technique can open the doors to markets that demand greater rigor in the quality of the fruit.