Sugar apple fruits ripen 2-5 days after harvesting, thus becoming soft and easily injured. Careful, appropriate handling and transportation of the fruits is necessary to avoid bruising. 1. Post-harvest treatments 2. Packaging 3. Storage of fresh fruits 4. Pre-processing into pulp 5. Storage of pulp

1. Halabja Technical Agricultural college
Department industry food
Farhang Hamid
Farhang Haji Hamid
‫حەمید‬ ‫فەرهەنگ‬
‫هەڵەبجە‬ ‫کشتوکاڵی‬ ‫تەکنیکی‬ ‫کۆلێجی‬
+9647701420962
+9647501191918
iraqi-kurdistan-Halabja
Handling sugar apple fruits after harvest

2. Handling sugar apple fruits after harvest
1. Post-harvest treatments
Sugar apple fruits can be treated as follows prior to storage
or transport:
Rinse them in chlorinated water (100 ppm) at 10-12°C for
20 minutes, followed by 10 minutes in less chlorinated
water (20 ppm). To remove chlorine residues, immerse
them in water containing 2 ppm of chlorine. See Technical
Note 20 for fur- ther information on how to prepare
chlorinatedwater.
Sugar apple fruits protected with soft cush-
ioning and packed in cardboard boxes
2. Packaging
Fruits are packed either for proper storage or for safe transport
to local or distant markets.
 Only pack fruits in a single layer, with 6-8 kg in card-
board boxes or plastic trays as they are verydelicate.
 If 2 or 3 fruit layers have to be used, protect fruits
with soft cushioning.
3. Storage of fresh fruits
 Physiologically mature sugar apples stored at 13ºC for 12
days ripen within:
- 2-4 days when transferred to room temperature (27ºC);
- 6 days when transferred to 20ºC.
 Ripe fruits can be kept for only 1 day at room
temperature. When packed in straw, they can be kept for 2
days.
 Ripe fruits can be stored for 5 days at 5ºC. Kept at 4.5ºC,
they can be stored for 5-6 weeks in good condition for
consump- tion. However, the skin shows injuries due to
chilling and be- comes brown.
 Immature fruits stored below 15ºC develop injury due to
chill- ing, resulting in an unpleasant appearance.
Sugar apple fruits ripen 2-5 days after harvesting, thus becoming soft and easily
injured. Careful, appropriate handling and transportation of the fruits is
necessary to avoid bruising.
Pre-cooling treatment prior to
shipment as recommended for
other annona types does NOT
improve the post-harvest life of
sugar apple fruits.
Sugar apple fruits are very
perishable and have a short
post-harvest life, therefore
they require efficient
storage techniques.
Optimal conditions to ex-
tend the storage life of sugar
apple fruits are tempera-
tures of 15-20ºC and 85-90%
relative humidity.

3. Place in jars or
plastic containers
Fresh pulp
Boil for 15 minutes
at 95ºC Place in jars
4. Pre-processing into pulp
Fresh pulp:
1. Cut fruits by hand into
pieces and scrape the pulp
from the skin.
2. Extract the seeds from the pulp.
3. Place the fresh pulp in jars or
plastic containers and store in the
refrigerator for further
processing.
Frozen pulp:
1. Place fresh
pulp in plastic
containers
and seal.
2. Freeze fresh
pulp and
store for
further
processing.
Pasteurised pulp:
1. Heat pulp for 3 minutes at 70ºC.
2. Pour pulp into clean jars/bottles and seal.
3. Pasteurise sealed jars/bottles at 95ºC for
15 minutes.
4. Store for further processing.
Treated pulp:
Sugar apple pulp can be preserved with
potassium metabisulphite, where
available.
1. Treat fresh pulp with 250 ppm of
SO2 (0.4 g potassium metabisulphite
per kg pulp) when stored in
refrigerator after- wards.
Use 500 ppm of SO2 (0.8 gpotassium
metabisulphite per kg pulp) when stored
at ambient temperature.
2. Pour treated pulp in jars/bottles and
seal.
3. Store for further processing.
5. Storage of pulp
 Pasteurised pulp can be stored for
150 days in sealed jars at 27ºC.
 Pulp can be stored for 180 days at
room temperature when treated
with 500 ppm
Storage Storage
Fresh fruits
Cut fruits and scrape the
pulp from the skin
A recovery of 50% of pulp
can be obtained from the
ripe edible fruit.
Extract seeds from the pulp
Storage
Place in plastic
containers
Heat pulp for 3
minutes at 70ºC
Where available:
- Add 250 ppm of SO2 if
stored in a refrigerator
- Add 500 ppm of SO2 if
stored at room temperature
Freeze pulp Place in jars
Storage

4. Halabja Technical Agricultural college
Department industry food
Farhang Hamid
Farhang Haji Hamid
‫حەمید‬ ‫فەرهەنگ‬
‫هەڵەبجە‬ ‫کشتوکاڵی‬ ‫تەکنیکی‬ ‫کۆلێجی‬
+9647701420962
+9647501191918
iraqi-kurdistan-Halabja