Manual transportation within the plot and physical damages to bananas

The manual transportation of banana bunches within plots provokes physical damages to fruits compromising their quality. To assess the influence of the distance banana bunches travel on the shoulders of harvesters within the plot, on the incidence of physical damages present on the peel of fruits of the Nanicão cultivar, two experiments were carried out in the Vale do Ribeira region (SP), in sites with slope < 1%. Each experiment divided the plot in different distance bands, two of which were included in this study: one located far away from the collection roads (30-50 m and 80-100 m distance bands) and another in an intermediate position (70-80 m and 130-150 m distance bands). For each distance band, six banana bunches of 36 mm gauged fruits were randomly sampled. Four banana hands were cut from the middle region of each bunch and ten fruits were assessed per hand, totaling 240 fruits per treatment. Bunches were harvested at the same maturity degree and those served as control were not transported. A total of 1440 fruits was assessed in the two experiments. The physical damages on the fruit surface were graded on a scale with 6 divisions: 0-0.25 cm²; 0.25-0.5 cm²; 0.5-1.0 cm²; 1.0-1.5 cm²; 1.5-2.0 cm²; 2.0-2.5 cm². The bunches transported on the shoulders of harvesters on distances over 70 m suffered increased (P < 0.01) damaged area. Most damages presented areas up to 0.5 cm²