**7. Irradiation and LED light**

Fresh fruits and vegetables contain around more than 80–90% moisture. The production of fruits and vegetables has significantly reached to beyond the desired level. Despite, a significant portion of these fruits is getting spoiled due to attack of different micro-organisms during harvesting, handling and storage. Several attempts have been made to control of these microbial population. But due to risk of health hazards, nonchemical approaches emphasized over chemical methods. Food irradiation is one of the major nonthermal methods to control the disinfestations. This is a cold treatment which is highly effective against fungal, bacterial and molds. This process involves the use of ionized radiations like gamma rays, X-rays and electron beam over the food surface. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) permitted the maximum dose limit of 1 kGy for fresh fruits and vegetables [78]. Irradiation can help in delaying of ripening, reduced fruit firmness, reduced rate of respiration and ethylene and lower enzymatic activities which extend the shelf life of fruits like mango, pear, peach, strawberry, Nagpur mandarin, acid lime, etc. [50–53]. Irradiation is also helpful against many quarantine pests like *Bactrocera dorsalis* in papaya, fruit fly and stone weevil in mango [54, 55]. It was also reported that a dose of <150 Gy is sufficient to control tephritid fruit flies [55]. Similarly, Bustos et al. [56] reported that a dose of 100 and 150 Gy are enough to kill third instar larva of Mexican fruit fly and Mediterranean fruit fly in mango as a quarantine treatment. Ladaniya et al. [53] found that the irradiation dose of 1.5 kGy was delayed the Penicillium rot in Nagpur mandarin with higher total soluble solids.

Now a days, lighting based on light emitting diodes (LEDs) is one of the main emerging technologies in horticulture to enhance quality and inhibit diseases in fruits and vegetables after harvesting. LBL able to induce disease resistance in different fruit crops such as in citrus fruits against *P. digitatum*, when fruits were exposed to LBL for 3 days with 70 l mol m<sup>−</sup><sup>2</sup> s<sup>−</sup><sup>1</sup> (Ballester and Lafuente [57]), in *Vitis vinifera* against *B. cinerea* at 80-mol m<sup>−</sup><sup>2</sup> s<sup>−</sup><sup>1</sup> (Ahn et al. [79]). LED blue light induces fruits ripening by ethylene production in strawberry, in citrus fruits (Ballester and Lafuente [57]), in peaches at 40 mol m<sup>−</sup><sup>2</sup> s<sup>−</sup><sup>1</sup> (Gong et al. [58]) and in banana at 464–474 nm (Huang et al. [59]). Likewise it was found that LED light had positive effect on the quality in terms of the accumulations of ascorbic acid content, total sugar and phenols in banana (Huang et al. [59]), increase total sugar content, total phenols ascorbic acid and enhances antioxidant enzyme activities (catalase, superoxide dismutase and ascorbate peroxidase) in strawberry (blue (470 nm) light at an intensity of 40-mol m<sup>−</sup><sup>2</sup> s<sup>−</sup><sup>1</sup> ) (Xu et al. [60]).

**33**

and human.

**Table 2.**

**9. Cold plasma technique (CPT)**

*Harnessing the Recent Approaches in Postharvest Quality Retention of Fruits*

All fruits and vegetables are prone to fungal and bacterial infection during storage. Due to postharvest microbial infection a significant part of fresh produce is lost during the handling, transportation and storage [80, 81]. The high moisture content and injuries make them more perishable and susceptible against microbial spoilage. Some postharvest diseases cause major breakdown in whole bulk and reduce the value of produce. The major postharvest diseases include soft rot, gray mold, anthracnose, stem end rot, blue mold, green mold, etc. that may cause huge loss. Several chemical and nonchemical approaches implemented to reduce the above said infection and to control of diseases. However, nonchemical approaches are getting more attention including use of essential oils, plant extracts and other plant based fungicides, use of bioagents. The use of bioagents is more helpful and ecofriendly approach in this line which has host specific mechanism. In this food safety line, several products were made by isolating different microorganism which as parasitic mechanism against wide range of disease causing harmful microorganisms. Some of

the commercially available bioagents formulations are given in the **Table 2**.

**Name of products Available commercial formulation**

*Above formulations are on the basis of availability in the market with their commercial formulations.*

Serenade *Bacillus subtilis* Messenger *Erwinia amylovora* Biosave *Pseudomonas syringae* Aspire *Candida oleophila*

*Some common commercially available bioagents formulations.*

Uses of some safe bioactive compounds have been proved beneficial in bringing down the physiological activities of fruits during transportation, storage and minimizing the overall qualitative and quantitative losses. Many antagonist species have been identified and inoculated over various fruit surface to control several disease causing microorganisms. It was reported that *Bacillus subtilis* can be used to control green mold in citrus and brown rot of stone fruits [61, 62]. Another species *Trichoderma harzianum* act as antagonist against gray mold of strawberry, grape and anthracnose of banana [63, 64]. The use of present natural mechanism of disease control could be proven a better alternatives without harm to environment

This is a nonthermal technique that has many applications in food industry. It reduces the pathological load and deactivates the enzymatic reactions thus enhances the shelf life. The most of research work has been carried out to find out the effect of CPT on microbial decontamination rather than the quality aspect [65]. Plasma generates an electromagnetic energy which ionizes the gases, however, the energy generates by the CP is different for different purposes like packaging, plastic and polymer industries. In food technology, it is widely used for surface decontamination that is achieved by placing the foods in strong electric zone resulting generates of reactive gas species that could alter the quality and sensory attributes [65]. CP technique has great impact on the quality of fruits and vegetables. It increase the sucrose content whereas reduces the glucose and fructose and this might be

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.86889*

**8. Use of bio control agents**
