Effect of Packaging Materials on Post Harvest Quality of Avocado (Persea Americana) at Wolaita Sodo University in , Ethiopia

The experiment was conducted in laboratory in April 2016 at Wolaita Sodo University, Ethiopia .The objectives of the study were to evaluate the effect of different packaging materials on post harvest quality of avocado fruit and to identify the best packaging materials. The treatment was contain four packaging materials viz, control (floor), dried banana leaf, carton plus newspaper and plastic polyethylene. The experiment was laid out in complete block design with three replications. Data were recorded on post harvest qualiy parameters such as total soluble sugar, total weight loss, decay percentage, titratable acidity and shelf life assessment and analyzed by using statistical software. The result showed that there were a significant difference among all used packaging materials on total soluble sugar and decay percentage, while there were no significant difference among carton plus newspaper and dried banana leaf on total weight loss, titratable acidity and shelf life assessment. Avocado fruit packed in plastic polyethylene has the most long shelf life (14days) than packed in cardboard plus newspaper (10days), dried banana leaf (9days) and floor (control)(6).It can be concluded that avocado fruit stored in plastic polyethene bag prolong the shelf life of avocado than other packaging materials. so, plastic polyethylene bag was recommended. Due to the limitation of our laboratory materials we have used only four treatments; it would be advisable to repeat the experiment by using additional packaging materials to come up a comprehensive recommendation .