Control of post-harvest deterioration in vegetables in the UK

Abstract

Increasing vegetable production costs have lately created a greater awareness of post-harvest losses and quality problems. Mechanical damage, which may be accentuated by machine harvesting, is compounded in storage by increased water loss and a higher incidence of disease. Temperature control is probably more critical for vegetables than it is for most crops, in retarding physiological processes of decay or regrowth, and in reducing development of storage pathogens.