The Effect of Evaporative Cooling System on the Storage of Citrus (Sweet Orange)

Abstract Postharvest losses have been a very perpetual challenge facing the agricultural industries as most produce get spoilt after harvest owing to poor postharvest handlings. Several attempts have been made to eliminate this challenge ranging from transportation, packaging and storage. The panacea to this problem is still much work in progress. However, a developed cooler with a cooling efficiency of 86.01% which was immensely able to salvage the rapid deterioration challenge of fruits as ascertained through a seven days concurrent storage of sweet oranges in a cooler and ambient. The result shows that the cooler successfully improved the shelf life of the stored produce with about 4% weight loss of the stored citrus compared to the 9% weight loss of the ambient storage.