EXPORT OF IMPORTANT FRUIT CROPS MAHARASHTRA Volume-II

Quality of fruit is important in export marketing. Quality of fruit depends upon pre and post-harvest technologies used by the farmers. Poor agronomic practices deteriorate fruit quality. Quality can never be improved after harvest. Quality of fruit starts from farmer's planning of pre-harvest practices to that of post-harvest treatments which ends at the consumer level. In pre-harvest practices, selection of seed of exporting variety (propagation) and soil selection is important, and then planting, spacing, irrigation, fertilizer, nutrition, crop protection, pruning, flowering and supervision activities are essentially deal with it. In almost every aspects of pre-harvest technology, lot of science, beginning from land preparation to crop harvesting is involved. All of this must be balanced by a good return from the marketing processes and this can only be achieved by careful production, planning and crop management.