Effect of different pre-cooling time on postharvest quality of banana

A lab experimentwas conducted at Faculty of Sustainable Agriculture, University Malaysia Sabah, Sandakan to determine the effect of different precooling duration on the postharvest quality of banana, more precisely the Musa acuminata or Pisang Lemak manis. The banana was bought from Kampung Nelayan, Sandakan Batu 10. The banana washarvested 11 a.m. at the morning, andpackaged in a cool box before send to lab. Then banana was unpacked and expose to different treatment. The experiment design was CRD using different treatment such as 0 Cooling Time (CT), 1/8 CT, 1/4 CT, and 1/2 CT. After pre-cooling process, the banana samples were kept in controlled environment of 10 -15°Cfor 4 weeks of storage duration. The replicates of each treatment was taken weekly for analysis ofweight loss, firmness, skin colour L *C*ho, SSC, titratable acid, pH and moisture content after storing in cold room.The results were analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistic 21, and 2-Way ANOVA test was run to test the significance effect of 2 factors. The result show that generally the different pre-cooling time did not affect physical quality significantly, but rather on the chemical qualities especially the SSC and pH of M.acuminata. The result did not suggest the best cooling time but post hoc test had differentiated the effect with or without pre-cooling