Efficacy of hexanal application on the post-harvest shelf life and quality of banana fruits (Musa acuminata) in Kenya
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The study was conducted to determine the efficacy of hexanal applied either as pre-harvest spray or post-harvest dip in enhancing the shelf life of banana var. Grand Nain. The study was done in Meru County (high potential zone) and Machakos County (low potential zone) of Kenya. Two hexanal concentrations (2 % and 3 %) were sprayed either once (at 30 days) or twice (at 30 days and 15 days) before harvest. Observations of how long the fruits stayed on the tree between the treated and untreated ones, was based on the duration taken for 20% of the fruits per bunch to ripen. Once ripe, the fruits were harvested and analysed. For the post-harvest dip treatment, fruits harvested at the mature green stage were dipped in 2 % hexanal, 3 % hexanal, or water (control) for 2.5 minutes or 5 minutes. The fruits were allowed to ripen at ambient room conditions (25 ± 1oC and RH 60 ± 5%). Physiological and physico-chemical parameters associated with fruit ripening were evaluated at 3-day intervals. An interaction between zone of production and mode of application had a significant effect (p <0.05) on fruit retention. Hexanal applied twice as a spray significantly (p < 0.05) improved fruit retention by 12 days and 18 days in Machakos and Meru Counties, respectively. Post-harvest dip treatments enhanced fruit shelf life by 9 days (5-minute dip) and 6 days (2.5-minute dip) compared to 6 days for bananas sprayed twice. Respiration rate, ethylene production, and fruit softening were significantly (p < 0.05) delayed by hexanal treatment. Progression of other ripening-related changes including increases in total titratable acidity, 0Brix, and vitamin C were slower in fruits treated with hexanal. Overall, these findings indicate that hexanal applied either as a pre-harvest spray (30 days and 15 days before harvest) or a post-harvest dip (5 minutes) has the potential to enhance banana shelf life besides improving fruit retention on the tree by 12-18 days when applied as pre-harvest spray.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".