A combination of gum arabic and chitosan can control anthracnose caused by Colletotrichum musae and enhance the shelf-life of banana fruit.

摘要

Anthracnose, caused by Colletotrichum musae, is the major disease affecting the quality of bananas during storage. To control banana anthracnose, the combined effects of coatings with gum arabic (GA; at 5, 10, 15 or 20% (w/v)) and 0.75% (w/v) chitosan (CH) were determined and compared to untreated controls. in vitro results showed significant (P <0.05) inhibition of mycelial growth and conidial germination of C. musae in all combined treatments compared to untreated controls after 7 days of incubation at 25 degrees C. However, potato dextrose agar (PDA) plates amended with 10% (w/v) GA gave the most promising results among all test treatments in suppressing mycelial growth (86%) and inhibiting conidial germination (80%), while no effective inhibition of conidial germination was observed in the controls. in vivo results confirmed that 10% (w/v) GA was the optimum concn. to control fruit decay (70%), while showing efficacy on the reduction of growth of C. musae on artificially inoculated bananas. GA + CH also delayed ripening markedly in terms of wt. loss, fruit firmness, soluble solids content and titratable acidity. Results support the feasibility of using 10% (w/v) GA combined with 0.75% (w/v) CH as an alternative strategy to control post-harvest anthracnose in bananas.