IMPACT OF PRE-HARVEST FRUIT BAGGING ON QUALITY, PEST AND DISEASE INCIDENCE IN MANGO CV. CHINNRASAM

Mango is an important tropical and subtropical fruit crop in India. However, due to climate change and nonadoption of good management practices in mango leads to increased pest and disease incidence. Hence, farmers are using pesticides indiscriminately to control these pests leads to pesticide residues on fruits which is a major hurdle for exports of mango fruits from India. Preharvest fruit bagging possess prospectus in mango to avoid pest and disease incidence thereby increasing the quality of fruit. Hence, the field experiment was conducted at Mango Research Station Nuzvid, Dr. YSR Horticultural University during 2021 to 2024 for four years to study the effect of pre-harvest fruit bagging on quality and pest and disease incidence in mango cultivar chinnarasam which is a popular commercial variety of Andhra Pradesh. The experiment was laid out in Randomized Block Design (RBD) with 3 replications and 7 treatments consisted three colours of bags and two variants in each colour and control as no bagging. The findings clearly indicated that among the treatments, T4 (Yellow colour with flip) recorded significantly maximum content of ascorbic acid (54.25 mg/100g), which was on par with T2 (Reddish brown with flip) while minimum content (27.42 mg/100g) was found in T7 (Control). Both reddish brown and yellow colour were superior for nonreducing sugars total sugars followed by white bags. Thrips and sooty mould damage was recorded minimum (10.19% and 10.96%, respectively) in reddish brown bags, which was followed by yellow and white bags. Fruit fly damage was not found in bagged fruits while control recorded highest incidence of 42.33%. Based on these results, it can be concluded that pre-harvest bagging of fruits with reddish brown or yellow colour found to be best for improving the fruit quality and to avoid pests and disease incidence thereby pesticide residues in mango.